


Hold On

by JodyBarsch



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Falling In Love, Family, Post Season 3, Prison, Relationship(s), TWD Family, bethyl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 19:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 49,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1952832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JodyBarsch/pseuds/JodyBarsch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth stands close to Daryl. Daryl's eyes always float to her. The group is beginning to notice... [Set post Season 3, the bulk written before Season 4 aired, so now it's a little AU, i.e. no Zach, Carl's not in the farming penalty box, etc.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I'm new to writing for TWD and I know this story isn't where it could be, and amounts to a lot of telling rather than showing, but, it doesn't get better if it doesn't get written :)
> 
> During S3 I came here looking for Beth/Daryl stories but there was only 1 (boy has that changed!) Beth was predominantly paired with Merle at that time, so I started writing this for myself. I started writing it before the end of S3, so it's not in sync with what happens in S4 (i.e. they haven't taken in people from the road, at least not as many — the prison population is pretty much Rick's survivors and the elderly and children taken in from Woodbury (Beth is alone in her age group — no Zach), and Rick and and Carl haven't taken such a time out.) Okay, enough preamble, hope you can find something in this to enjoy.

" _Hey_!" Daryl calls, "Mich _o_ nne, M _a_ ggie! Le's  _go_!" Daryl straddles his bike and waits for the others to get it together. They're making a run, through a couple houses back on some small farms up the highway some ways. For the third time Daryl checks his fuel tank and his arrow supply, then impatiently drums his fingers on his handlebar grips. Carl and Rick are already in the car, also waiting. Michonne appears with her katana in hand, and Maggie emerges from the cell blocks with Beth. Maggie kisses her sister's cheek and straps on her backpack.

"Be safe," Beth smiles at her. As Maggie nods and moves towards the vehicle, Beth's eyes trail over to Daryl. His eyes meet hers, and biting his lower lip he tugs at a string round his neck, on it's a stone guitar pick. He touches it, then looks away, letting it drop down, disappearing again beneath the collar of his shirt.

Behind the wheel Rick starts the car, and Daryl revs his engine. Glenn, Tyreese and Carol open the gate, and the group of runners head out.

* * *

Maggie follows directly beside him as Daryl takes the lead into the farmhouse. His bow is raised and at the ready, her gun is poised, and they walk steadily onward, taking slow deliberate, light footed steps into the house. Daryl signals her, she nods, and he kicks open the swinging door to the kitchen. When there's no telltale snarling or clamoring Maggie heads through, backed by Daryl.

"Clear!" Carl shouts from upstairs.

"Clear!" Michonne calls from the back of the house.

Maggie looks to Daryl, he nods and lowers his bow, swinging the strap onto his back as she yells their check-in, "Clear!"

The words said, their stances immediately relax, and Maggie brushes the hair back off her face while Daryl hitches up his pants. He points her to the overhead cabinets while he takes the walk-in pantry. "Pretty picked clean alre'dy," he observes, sticking is head into an almost empty coffee canister.

"Got some canned peas," Maggie says. "Only expired by..." she inspects the label, "by ten months."

"Take 'em." Daryl pulls down a pot and stands on it to swipe the upper shelves. " _Booyah_ ," he exclaims, "got us some Charlie Tuna!"

She turns back to him, "Really?"

"Six cans. Industrial. Dumb asses came b'fore us didn't know how to search. Got some corn meal too," he says with satisfaction. But when he looks inside the sack, his face crinkles in disappointment, "Worms've gotten to it."

"Take it," she says, "we'll figure it out later."

"Ain't bringin' no bugs back to the prison," he counters offhandedly. "Got e'nough already." Daryl isn't precious, he'll go months without showering, he'll eat grasshoppers or worse — and has — in the times when hunger really strikes hard, but as ill at ease he is with middle class mores, and as rugged a life he chooses to lead off of everyones else's beaten path, he is a creature who likes his comforts. Not one to be caged in he still knows the value of a good bed. Not above eating muskrats or mud snakes, he isn't keen on biscuits with worms. On some things he'd rather go without than compromise.

"Winter's comin'," Maggie's face scrunches in that farmer's-daughter's way it does when she makes a reasonable case for something. "We gotta take what we can."

"Whatever," he grunts an easy and dismissive concession. "It's goin' in  _your_ bag."

Maggie shakes her head in quiet amusement; the woodsman will stink of sweat and gore all day and never flinch, but sometimes he'll balk on principal. He'd make a meal of worms for the group if that's all there was between them and ruthless biting hunger, but he won't invite them in his pack if he doesn't feel like it.  _Recusant._ The man is recusant, she thinks. And contrary, and unruly, and unpeggable. Impenetrable is what he is, even considering all the moments of genuine feeling, the openness he sometimes betrays; more so, a little, every coming week.

As they move on, through more cabinets, and more closets, Maggie can't keep her glance from moving sideways and landing on him. In her head she's working something out and she looks at him as he raids a junk drawer and then two remote controls for batteries. Daryl glances back over his shoulder at her, " _Whut_?" he barks. But Maggie only shakes her head and he turns back to the drawer, palming chewing gum, matches, and an ice pick. "Might as'well  _say it_ , you been looking at me funny  _all day_. Gettin' sick of it." He looks back at her again, "Go _on_ , say it."

Maggie looks at him, eyeing the archer over before she speaks, "That pick—" she says, and looks at where his shirt would be concealing it. Daryl looks at her and then down to his chest, though he can't see the thing she means. "That's Beth's. Her friend Christian gave it to her on her sixteenth birthday; he was teaching her to play."

Daryl blinks. Letting her do the talking, his countenance remains guarded. " _So?_ " The look Maggie gives him tells him she's not going to explain herself any further — the implication is clear enough. If Beth had gifted it to him, there must be a reason, but Maggie can't recall ever seeing them especially spending time together; it is not like Beth to be secretive. In answer Daryl looks at her from beneath furrowed brows with goaded bravado, "Whutch'ya gettin' at?" Maggie says nothing more, and when she doesn't answer Daryl turns away from her, shrugging apathetically, "Ask her y'rself." He kicks open the door and passes through to the hall, shooting off for good measure, "Lotta ch _a_ win' 'bout a guit _a_ r pick." He walks off headed for the stairs, briskly passing by Carl as he does.

Carl, who'd been in the hallway just beyond the kitchen, overhearing what — though sparse — he wished had never been spoken, stands there, his eyes narrowing, silently watching Daryl's back descend down the hall.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for taking the time to read, I hope you stay with me; I definitely welcome concrit. Speaking of, I know some readers will have a negative response to my representation of dialects and pronunciations, I'm sorry. I hope you can get past it, and I am continually reevaluating and readjusting. Thank you!


	2. Chapter 2

The roar of Daryl's motorcycle signals those on watch to rush and pull open the gates. He rides past, followed by the others in Glenn's car. Several people come down to the yard to welcome them back, Beth among them. Like the others she's smiling — regardless of the haul, it's a good run when each of them has returned in one piece.

Carl's first out of the car, petulantly slamming the door shut behind him. For a sliver of a moment Carl flashes his eyes towards Beth's, then he looks away, pushing past the crowd and disappearing on his own.

Maggie, with her loaded backpack also climbs out, pulling from the backseat a box of goods. Beth smiles at her, "Hi."

The older sister looks at her, maybe with new eyes, blinks, then smiles half way. Lightly she touches her baby sister's shoulder as she passes, moving further into the prison to find Glenn. There is something in her interaction with her sister, some sort of reservation, and withholding of questions, that isn't normally there between them.

Daryl, still astride his bike observes this, and he watches Maggie walk away before turning his gaze back on Beth. She smiles at him, warmly, but hangs back behind the others, she does not move in any closer. Daryl squints at her a half crooked smile, then dismounts the motorcycle, slipping his bow off his back. As he passes by her his eyes fall on her for a brief moment, and though he never stops walking, his head ducks momentarily towards her and he grunts, "Think your sister's got questions."

...  _Worn inside his poncho is an amber stone guitar pick Beth had given him a week or so before. Beth had drilled the whole herself in the prison workshop, and strung it on a strip of leather._

_She didn't actually_ give _it to him. Doing so would have only embarrassed him, and made it awkward for her, and probably forced into words what up until this point had been in no need of words. It is there, but in this quiet muted way that benefits from the absence of examination, or extra eyes, or reflection. It is enough to feel it — that pull. That like spiritedness. A balance._

_It is enough to know his eyes would be looking for her, even if she never looks up to confirm it. That he might wait for her to enter a room before leaving it, or maybe find a way to stand near wherever she is. Whatever it is between them, it is enough, and a strung guitar pick she'd never really gotten the chance to learn to play with, is enough for him to know, that at least for the present, he isn't alone._

_She'd left it with his gear, in between ragged shirts and torn pants, newly washed and folded. There'd been nothing with it, not a note, not a look, but there was no question who it could be from. No one but Beth would do it._

_She'd had the pick on her when the farm fell. It was a gift on her sixteenth birthday, a beautiful pick and a promise to teach her to play. She carried it with her as a pact with herself that she would learn, but now, with no guitar to play, it's changed from a tool of purpose to a relic of a former life._

_And it carries with it now a new promise. Sober and steadfast. But unspoken._

_Today was the first time the thing had been acknowledged between them, subtly, and wordless. Today was the first time anyone in the group had any inclination there was any tie between them; as it was, it may be that only Maggie saw it, but she did see something. ..._

Beth's large eyes follow him, "It wasn't meant as a secret."

* * *

Beth, with a Cormac McCarthy novel Glenn'd picked up for her a few weeks ago, lies out on the grass in the yard with a bottle of water, trying to get some reading in between her chores and the August sun going down. Beside her on the blanket Judith plays with a rag doll. Beth turns the page.

Up the slope she spots Maggie approaching, but she drops her head back to her book, looking away from her sister, and the earful she's figuring is headed her way. Undeterred Maggie keeps on, and takes a seat beside them on the coarse blanket. "Hi," she smiles through the glaring sunlight. Beth doesn't say a word. She turns another page in her book. Maggie watches, holding her index finger out to the infant to grab. As Judith happily takes hold of the finger, grasping it and gnawing on it, Maggie looks to her sister then up to the clouds, "It's a pretty day." She's smiling at Beth, hoping she'll return the gesture.

"Don't."

Maggie doesn't pay this mind. "I think, I'h think maybe we've got something to talk about," she fishes.

Beth lifts her head blankly. "L _i_ ke?"

Maggie had expected her guileless baby sister to be more forthcoming than this. "Like the pick. I s _a_ w it."

"It's a guitar pick, M," Beth says plainly, shutting her eyes to feel the sun burn down on her skin.

Maggie squints at her, "You wanna talk about it?"

Beth shakes her head like Maggie's acting ridiculous, "It's a  _guitar pick_."

Maggie nods to be agreeable, and the girls sit in silence, soaking up the sun. Maggie helps Judith stand, wobbling on her two little legs as she balances herself between Maggie's outstretched hands. "We should get her a hat," Maggie reflects, breaking the silence. "Or somethin'." She looks up into the sky, "Not a lot of shade."

" _Maggie_ ," Beth says, urging her to stop with the filler small talk.

Maggie looks at her. "Beth, are you serious about this?" Beth keeps her eyes on the baby, purposefully avoiding her older sister's looks. Maggie lets it drop again. She looks around the yard, at the browning tall summer grass, abuzz with insects large and small, at Rick's crops just starting to really produce, at the stream running, just beyond the fences, the clouds moving slowly through the still sky. "It's nice out here," she says. "Pretty. If you look past the walkers. I'h almost forgot."

Beth looks at Maggie now, scooping the little girl into her arms as she does, "We can make a liafe here. We can make this home." She looks right at her sister, "That means more than jist keepin' the fences safe. It's got to."

Maggie's lips purse and twitch to one side as she watches her sister tend to the littlest survivor in their group. Maggie reflects on Beth's words, of course she doesn't disagree. Neither does she presume to know exactly what is in Beth's head (or heart), nor would she ever go so far as to tell Beth how to shape her life here in the prison, but that is not to say she does not have reservations, regarding what she believes she's beginning to pick up on. Studying the youthful profile of her sister, Maggie knows, and possibly regrets (that much remains to be seen), Beth has always known her own mind. How many times in their lives had she fiercely stood her ground when called upon? Countless. If she is anything, Maggie knows her sister to be staunch. Beth is young, naive in some ways, gentle in spirit, but stalwart in her convictions.

As it's clear to her anything more on the subject would not be welcome, Maggie presses it no further, resolving instead to wait and see what develops.  _Maybe it will be good. Maybe it will be nothing. But maybe Beth is putting too much faith in a person not able to receive it, or capable of returning it; it's Beth's own heart, so true and wide and open, that still may be most able to break her._


	3. Chapter 3

In her room that night, looking up from her journal, Beth's eyes fall upon the goofy garden gnomes Daryl'd brought her. She's uncertain what it is about her that struck him with the thought that she might like these, but in the end, it turns out she actually does. They're reminders, ridiculous ones maybe, that people in the world once were able to do things like decorate their gardens with whimsical plaster figurines. The things themselves are stupid; the world they come from is not. And more than likely Daryl'd known she'd know that.

Beth thinks about Daryl Dixon, and the guitar pick, and what it means, and doesn't mean. She thinks about the day she'd followed him into the woods — the first time, maybe, in over more than a year, that the two of them were in a conversation of just the two of them, talking something other than survival, or Judith.

... ... ...

_Daryl stops when he hears a crunch in the foliage behind him, he turns quickly with his bow raised, then stops, it isn't a walker at all. "Girl, whut're ya doin' out here?" He lowers his bow and spits, "'Sides tryin' to git y'rself killed."_

_"I'h have my gun."_

_"Helluva lotta good it'll do you with an arrow through yur head." Daryl glances back to the prison then squints back at her, "Hershel know you're out here?"_

_Beth shakes her head. "Nope."_

_"Wull go on back," he waves her off, "ain't no reason f'r you to be out here."_

_"Yeah?" she questions. "What am I_ s'posed _to be doin'?"_

 _"Not gittin'_ bit _, or gittin'_ shot _, for_ one _," he_ _swings his arm at her. "Where's that little g_ i _rl?"_

_"With Carol." Beth takes a step closer. "So, is that all I'm good for?"_

_Daryl glares at her, "You sayin' you don't love 'er? Li'l Ass Kicker? That baby_ girl _?"_

_"I'_ _h do. I love her. But—"_ _Daryl slows down, he lets his muscles slacken a bit and he raises his squinted eyes to her and listens, "I—" now that he's actually listening she doesn't know exactly how to say what she's feeling — what it was that compelled her to go outside the fences this morning — and how not to say it in a way that'll sound stupid (or worse) to Daryl Dixon "— I'h_ _..._ _want somethin' more. Somethin' different."_

_"Yeah?" he grunts. "Like whut?"_

_"L_ i _ke…" She almost doesn't know. And it isn't against Judith. Not at all. Somehow with the loss of Lori the primary care of Rick's baby had fallen to her, and she finds great pleasure in it. She loves Judith, and she likes having something sweet, and new, and undamaged as a constant in her life. And it's important to her to keep Judith as untouched by the ugliness and degradation surrounding them as much as possible. This trek outside the prison has nothing to do with that, but, she's eighteen now, and, there has to be something still new in her life, something more to be, or learn, than what her life's been so far. She looks at Daryl, "Like trackin'." She hadn't come there for that, it hadn't been her intention, or even really on her mind, but she said it, and when the words left her lips she did not regret it._

_Daryl nearly loses his mind to incredulity, "You fer real?"_

_"Yeah."_

_Daryl Dixon looks at her... Yeah, Beth's mostly in the background, hanging back when there's clearing to do, but she can kill a walker, she doesn't scare. None of them do. That winter they'd spent on the road cured them of that. They react, they fight back, Beth too. She does all right at the fences. He's hardly seen her freeze up. Still his inclination is to refuse. "Uh uh," he shakes his head fervently. But he feels her watching him with adolescent expectation, and squinting up at her he yields fractionally, "Gotta ask your dad."_

_"He'll say 'no.'"_

_"Well," he wipes the sweat of his brow with his forearm, "that's his call."_

_"It's not fair." She doesn't say it like a child would, she says it in the manner that would compel people to listen, and maybe really see that it isn't fair. But fairness isn't chief in Daryl Dixon's concerns, and where family's concerned, he's approaching the issue from a drastically different vantage point than a child of Hershel Greene's would._

_"Beth," he pragmatizes gruffly, "a lotta things ain't fair; your people trying to keep you safe? That ain't one. Not even close."_

_And Beth just stands there. She hadn't expected him to say 'no'. She's quiet, and feeling a little cut down. She looks at him. "Fine." And she turns back toward the prison._

_"B-_ e _th," he grunts. "Beth, hold up." Daryl shoulders his bow and tromps through the foliage to her. "Walk you back."_

_"I'm fine." Maybe she hadn't been clear on what she had been anticipating when she'd journeyed outside the prison, but Daryl's not usually this curt with her, and it's a little humbling to be sent back like a child._

_"Yeah, well, evr'rybody's fine, till they're not."_

_Beth stops and looks at him, "You shouldn't think about it that way."_

_Daryl cocks an eyebrow at her, then gestures his crossbow toward the prison to keep them moving. "Ain't no other way tuh think about it." They walk the rest of the way in silence. She crosses the foot bridge first and he follows, keeping his eyes active on the tree line at all times. When they reach the cut in the fence Beth undoes the chain link clamps and wire and he pulls back the fencing for her to slip through, but Daryl does not follow._

_"Aren't you comin'?"_

_Daryl's lips purse as he shakes his. "Naw, uh,uh. Ain't hardly started." Beth's large eyes blink at him, and she lets the fencing roll back in place and re-clamps and wires it tightly between them. She turns to head up the path to the guard tower, and as she walks Daryl calls after her,_ _"Greene," he commands with rugged authority, "don't be comin' out here again. We got those fences fer a reason. We fought for those fences." Beth looks at him, and blinks, and retreats._

_..._

_Early evening, having returned with a couple woodchucks and a coot, Daryl's cleaned the game, left it to Carol and Tyreese to cook, and, having rinsed himself off, heads into C block. There on the stairs, holding Judith, as so often she is, sits Beth. Daryl bites his lower lip and his head drops in some sideways form of abashed greeting. "Hey." He'd pulled rank _, or something like it,_  on her earlier and he's loathe to discover she's holding it against him._

_Beth looks up from the babbling baby. She smiles at him, the same Beth smile as always. "Hey."_

_Relief. Daryl leans back on his heels, not quite meeting her eyes, "Sorry. 'Bout b'fore."_

_Beth's head ducks, as she looks down at Judith who's squirming and playing with her hands, then once more she's smiling up at Daryl; her dimples deepen, "It's okay."_

_Daryl swallows a smile. Instead he moves forward and reaches out for the baby, scooping up Judith from her arms. He smiles at the little girl and bounces her in his arm before propping her up and holding her in one arm against his chest, "Hey Ass Kicker," he smiles. "How's it goin'?" he asks her. "Whut'd ya do t'day?" Beth watches him pace with and talk to the baby, it's sweet. Daryl's not like he is with Judith with anyone else. Judith may be Rick's daughter, and Beth's de facto responsibility, but she has a definite claim on Daryl Dixon. "Ya know," he says, returning at least a portion of his attention to the older of the two girls, "you're not useless, Beth."_

_Beth looks up at him, smiling wryly. "Thanks."_

_He smirks at himself, "My'be didn't come out right." The bowman sticks his tongue out in a grin at the baby who's trying to grasp at his bearded chin, as he speaks to Beth, never fully returning his attention to her, "The group don't think that 'bout you."_

_"That's…" she smiles appealingly, "_ not _what I'h thought. That's… not what I meant." Her mouth makes the shape of a prim, measured smile, and she looks up at him with large wide blue eyes. "I don't wahnt to be weak."_

_Daryl glances at her, he hadn't expected her to say that, to think that, "You ain't."_

_"Don't, Daryl," she says, and rises and takes the little girl back from him, leaving him for her room. Daryl watches her leave, regretting the loss of the small person he'd held in his arms, and her sweet baby smell._

_... ... ..._

It turned out he hadn't been patronizing her. Daryl doesn't do that. He may not lend word to every thought he has, but he never speaks what he doesn't own. There's a comfort in that. And something appealing.

And Daryl doesn't treat her like she' wounded, or fragile, or not up to par. That long ropey scar on her wrist, mostly covered now by bracelets, means nothing to him; his own is the only past that bothers Daryl Dixon. And to him she's not an afterthought. Even Maggie, these days with her new role in the group, and preoccupation with Glenn, does less talking  _with_  her and more talking  _to_  her.

There's more to Beth Greene than much of the group sees. And Beth may not know what Daryl sees when he sees her, but she is coming to feel seen under his glance. And so they talk more, in fits and starts, about Judith, about hunting. About food and runs; about the past  _—_  leastways she does. They talk about nothing. Never for very long, sometimes just for moments, but the sum of their words, and of the space between them when they stand near, amount to much more  _—_ a thing of growing significance to her.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After going back and re-reading I realized my timeline wasn't exactly clear so I revised this chapter putting into past tense (and italics) to clarify that it happened before the action of chapters 1&2 and that 3&4 were contextual memories. Is it clearer? I'm not a huge fan of writing in past tense so I can switch it back it it's unnecessary or isn't working, but without it it seemed lie it was hard to keep track of when things were happening in relation to each other. ok

It was two days after her cut-short sojourn into the outside world when they spoke again. Daryl had stayed the night out in the woods, traveling further out to find bigger game, he didn't return until the sun was high up the following day.

_Beth was out in the yard scrubbing laundry with Karen and Carol. Daryl sauntered up, nodded a smile at Carol and laid a friendly squeeze on her shoulder as he passed; walking on, moving past Beth he tugged discreetly on the end of her ponytail, coolly jerking his head for her to follow after. Several paces further past the outdoor laundry Daryl stopped and perched himself atop a half-full water drum._

_Beth, who had followed after, stood there watching him, her fair arms wet, raw and red from the scrubbing and the detergents. Massaging her arms as she waited for Daryl's purpose to be made known Beth smiled at him, while behind them Carol excused herself wordlessly. The short haired woman of infiniteness grit scooped Judith up from where she'd been sitting in the shade of a large cardboard box turned makeshift playhouse and headed back to the cell blocks, leaving Karen alone at the scrub board._

_Daryl's eyes followed her exit for a few steps before they fell again on Beth. "Hey," he squinted at her as she dried her hands on her jeans legs. "How's it goin'?"_

_Beth mopped the sweat from her brow, and he liked the view of her standing there in the beating sun, her blonde hair framing her flushed face with stray wisps of curls and strands. He blinked softly, and Beth in answer looked back behind her at the washing, "Wishin' we could find some disposable diapers." She's smiling again when she looked back to him, just enough so her dimples appeared — so effortlessly charming._

_Daryl smirked and nodded. "We try." He shrugged, "Ass Kicker blows through 'em faster 'n we can find 'em."_

_He's answered by a sporting roll of Beth's eyes, "Whutta you know about it? You ever change her?"_

_Like he knew he'd gotten away with something Daryl's eyes crinkled and narrowed with a slight upturn at one corner of his mouth. "M'bye not," he conceded. Beth returns this with a slight smile in spite of herself. Daryl looks away._

_Evading her attention he looked up in the sky, then out into the tree line; her gaze followed. Beth's brow furrowed in earnestness, "What's it like out there?"_

_Daryl's eyes shifted to glance quickly at her. "Quiet." He scratched at his chin with his thumb, "Mostly." Her youthful blue eyes flashed on him —_ is 'quiet' really accurate? _Daryl ignored the look. "Got three squirrels."_

_"That's somethin'," she responded, her small smile returning._

_"You take a headcount round here lately? Ain't no damn three squirrels gonna make a dent. We gotta find some meat." Daryl grumbled, "God damned walkers getting all the game. If we were near a marsh we could get some gators. No gator's lettin' a walker get the jump on him."_

_Beth looked at him with her large sweet eyes, "Ih've never eaten alligator."_

_"Add that tuh the mile long list people 're doin' nowadays they ain't never done b'fore."_

_Beth's lips pressed together and her dimples deepened, "I guess so."_

_"Gator 's good," Daryl reflected. "Fry it up. Beer. Nothin' like it."_

_"My mother," Beth smiled softly, like somehow the memory is fragile, "made the best fried chicken."_

_"My mother couldn't cook for shit. Damn collards an' beans. Burned ev'rythin' she tried at." Then Daryl stopped short, and mournfully shook his head at himself, that was a poor choice of words. "Shit." His attention traveled momentarily away from her as something unspoken reared its head and troubled the creases in his weathered face._

_Though she didn't know the reason behind it, the sudden change in Daryl wasn't lost on her. Graciously Beth brought them back on subject, "The garden's comin' along."_

_"Last time I checked," Daryl retorted, squinting into the sun, having with her help pulled himself back out of the past, "I weren't no Yank vegan pansy ass."_

_Beth looked past his brusqueness, instead affirming, "We're lucky to have it."_

_"Yeh," he acknowledged. "Ain't no reason to rest on our laurels."_

_Beth half smiled a laugh, "I like the way you talk."_

_Daryl's eyes shifted directly to hers; something in him couldn't keep the look from becoming a glare. He swallowed, and ignored her. "Still, winter's comin'." Beth looked to the sky as though there might be something there to confirm it. "We can't hunt now," he continued, mostly to himself, "in thuh summer, there's gonna be shit-all tuh find in Feb'uary."_

_Beth cocked her head at him, "Daryl." He looked. Her smile sparkled. "Ih'm not hungry; 're you?"_

_Daryl glared at her, then scratched at his bottom lip with his thumb, a glint cracked in his eyes. "No."_

_"So," she started, "you gotta take that; fer now. You gotta let that be enough."_

_"You want me to remind you of that when you're eatin' icicle stew?" Daryl's words came across gruffly but there's a trace of humor behind them._

_Smiling as well, Beth looked back at the laundry behind them, "I'h should git back."_

_They both looked back at Karen and the washing; Carol had never returned. Daryl nods at her, "Git on."_

_Beth took a step to leave, stopped, smiled at him a bit unsure, then moved on, saying first to him, "Ih'm glad you're back."_

_Daryl blinked, and worried his lower lip. Then he swung his shoulder at her, breaking any meaningful look there may have been between them. "Go ahead al'ready."_

 


	5. Chapter 5

The first night they spent together  _—_  her sleeping with him in his bed — happened sort of by default. Neither one of them said anything about it. Neither one had planned it, exactly, or spoke the words or asked the question. They simply, waited each other out. Waited the night out, waited exhaustion out, keeping sleep at bay till they were essentially forced to fall asleep right there where they laid. Together. It seemed like there wasn't any other way for it to happen.

She was up in the perch with him, filing down quartz and flint into arrowheads with him. He'd set her to work at it, making arrows, not long after she'd approached him in the woods. With the help of the batteries the group had been collecting they'd powered the power tools in the shop, long enough to cut wood  _—_  blocks, and blocks, and blocks of long strips of wood. Enough to last. Enough to last the world ending two times over. From there Beth uses the hand drill to force the strips through a dowel maker, daily making shafts. With the power, it is easy work. There are bolt shafts for days now. It's the fletching, and the arrowheads that's taking time. But they've got time. And off and on in down moments, in the evenings or when they two have a little spare time to dedicate to it, they have been working at it.

In reality they've got a production line there at the prison, ready to be put to use, but so far it's just him and Beth. She'd been looking for something more to do, this is what he came up with. And it put them together. Side by side in dual purpose. Daryl couldn't look for or expect more than this. There is nothing spoken of it — this unexamined draw, this pull toward one another — between them. There is barely anything  _un_ spoken between them. Except the pick, and the weighty silent magnetism that builds each time they stand in proximity to one another.

It came from nowhere it seemed, this kinship.

One day he was crossbow-wielding, fearless, reliable Daryl Dixon. And one day he was gentle, and selfless, and true. Then one day he was so much more.

And one day she was Beth Greene, the baby sister, the younger daughter, the girl whose wide eyes didn't seem to see the world for what it is. And one day she was determined, and dauntless, and open. Then one day she was brave, in the quietest, purest, and most private way, and he saw what she brings to the group is so much more than what he'd given her credit for.

With still so few words of consequence between them, it might have been strange, the closeness they surreptitiously keep to one another. But it was neither his words nor one thing she said that made each one look at the other in the new way they do now. It is a thing they  _feel._ Palpable, if yet unknowable. And thus there is little strange about it.

Likely no one notices there's never more than a person standing between them when in a group. Likely no one sees he never goes to bed while she's still up among the others. These are indeed small things, of little consequence to pairs with an understanding between them, but to these two, novices each in their own ways, the smallest thing is everything. Every slight interaction is increasingly, inwardly momentous. But the undercurrents do not charge them with any awkwardness; they are keenly, starkly aware of the other, but their gentle ease with one another is unparalleled.

Sleepily Beth stops her filing and admires her work. Holding the quartz blade up against the candlelight it gleams warm and sparkling. "It's pretty."

Daryl keeps at his filing. "Ain't s'posed tuh be pretty."

Her eyelids blink, heavily, the late hour taking its toll. "But it is."

"Long as it's lethal."

Beth touches her finger to the tip. "It is. How," she yawns and rubs her eyes, "how fast does it go?"

"380 feet. Per second. Long 's the arrow's true."

Beth looks at him. Her eyes are heavy and dry and she takes frequent deep breaths for the brief revivals they allow her. She pulls the blanket closer round her shoulders, and leans back against the wall. From there she watches him file, deftly, by rote. He could be doing it in his sleep. He nearly is.

They don't talk much. But they talk enough. And more than once their eyes catch, as they have been, now and then, for some time. And they stay up late letting the time slip past them, the hour growing later, as their bleary-eyes struggle to stay open. Yawns become catching, minds begins to droop. Words lag and drift, till there's no sense to be made from them.

Just as well, everything they say is just another form of " _You_." The  _You_  they've been thinking for weeks, that's been pulling them together. The wordless unspoken  _You_  that's kept them up this night.

Beth's eyes have grown too heavy. She looks at Daryl and finally just lays her head down, curling up and snugging into his bed. She already had his blanket around her shoulders, and it is so late, and she is so tired, and he is so close, it is so easy just to lie down. And because it is late, and the light is dim, and because she is already there, and no one else is there to see, and because ... because he wants to,  _has_  been wanting to, Daryl lies down, too, beside her.

Though the immediate closeness to the other is stirring, lying there is enough. Being there, finally, so close, actually touching  _—_ not just momentarily — is enough. It's been years since Daryl's been this close to someone  _—_  this close and still, this close and not in danger, or in pain. This close and safe.

They're so tired their inhibitions and reservations are long since gone. Silently they've stayed awake together long enough to go to bed together. And it worked. Beth, barely conscious, tucks herself into the crooks of his arms, and without thinking Daryl pulls her in. Within minutes they're asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

When she wakes in the morning, still in his bed, the prison is already up. Daryl too. No doubt she's been missed, if not spotted  _—_  the perch isn't exactly concealed. Beth rubs her eyes; she should be up and feeding Judith by now, at the least she should be accounted for. Pulling off the blanket Beth stretches, and rises. She'd slept in her boots she realizes, and upon standing she wishes she hadn't.

Beth winces as the heals of her boots clatter and clang against each steel step she descends on the C Block stairs. "Shoot." She's not embarrassed, but she does not wish to draw such attention to herself. Not this morning.

"Mornin'," Sasha smiles at her, watching her descent from the upper level.

Beth looks up  _—_  "Mornin'" — having not expected to run into anyone so immediately.

"Your sister's got the baby."

"Okay."

"Others went on a run. Carol," Sasha glances at her, "Daryl."

"All right," Beth simply nods. She gathers her things and heads to the showers, starting her day with the knowledge this was the first time anyone ever thought to make a point of telling her Daryl's whereabouts. She likes the feeling it brings her.

* * *

Daryl and Carol have taken the truck out to the backside of the prison for a routine scouting check on the breach. Carol drives, while Daryl leans back in the passenger seat, his knee up, his elbow hanging out the window. His eyes shut and he lets the warm breeze rush over him as they drive, bumping and bouncing over the uneven terrain. He speaks, but doesn't bother to open his eyes. "We got any t _a_ pes? It's too q _ui_ et."

"Truck's old; the tape deck ate the last one."

Daryl picks at the window framing and grouses, "I miss m _u_ sic." He pivots his resting head toward her, "Don't you? Some Skynyrd, some Haggard, a little Hank Williams Jr." Carol snorts. "Whut?" He looks at her, smiling, "Whut?"

Carol shakes her head and smiles. "Nothing."

"'Ol' Daryl Dixon,' that's whut'ch you're th _i_ nkin'," he points at her good naturedly. "'Redneck through 'n through, huh?'"

"It's nothing." She veers quickly to avoid two walkers, then re-grips the wheel. "Ed liked Hank Williams."

" _Junior?_ " Daryl cocks a brow at her.

"Mm,hm. Played 'im all the time."

" _Asshole_ ," he mutters. Carol only smiles.

She stops the truck and they climb out, weapons at the ready, stepping over rubble and bodies, killing what's easy to without a full formation, counting the rest. When Daryl whistles the signal they head back to the truck and start the drive back.

"You happy?" Carol asks, looking at him from the corner of her eye as she drives.

"Exc _u_ se me?"

"Are you happy?" she repeats.

"You're askin' me th _a_ t?" He's looking at her with some incredulity. " _Why_?"

Carol's patient expression is that of an amused sister who's caught her brother in an utterly unnecessary lie. "Because of Beth," she answers evenly.

Daryl's eyes flinch, but he says nothing. He hangs his arm out the window letting the warm gusts of air drag and push around the open palm of his hand.

"Slept in your bunk last night," Carol evenly sets forth as evidence. "Has to be something."

Daryl looks at her, one corner of his mouth raised warily, "What is this? A quilting circle?" Carol's shoulders move up into amused shrug. She swerves twice to avoid two careening walkers. Daryl wipes at his nose and returns his gaze to outside the vehicle. "Less than nothin' h _a_ ppened."

"I know that," Carol nods. She glances at Daryl who in his discomfort is growing surly, "You've got a code."

"H _e_ ll," his eyes roll and he looks back out the window.

"She's sweet," Carol reflects. "She'll be good for you." Daryl doesn't say anything. And Carol looks over to him, and gently touches her palm to his face; she keeps driving. "It's time for you to be happy."

* * *

Returned from prospecting, Carol and Daryl find Rick and Hershel, Sasha and Michonne, and Glenn and Maggie, and gather with them beneath the recently erected pergola in the yard. "It's gettin' busy back there ag'in," Daryl says, unloading his bow on the outdoor kitchen table around which Rick and the others have gathered. "Think we better get a group out there t'day; stay ahead of it."

Karen, who's still cleaning the adobe kitchen from breakfast passes Daryl a bowl of berries and oats, passing Carol the same. Daryl takes it with a smile, but ducking his head to take a bite he gets a reading off the group  _—_  the energy is off slightly. He straightens, let's go the spoon, and eyes them. Something's off. And because it vaguely feels as though the strangeness is directed at him, rather than pulling up a chair at their table, Daryl keeps his distance, circling round the other tables and hangs back in the rear.

"How many?" Rick questions.

"Cup'le dozen," Daryl figures. "Give 'r take. We get out there now  _—_  m'ybe five  _—_  we can take 'em easy."

"Wasn't  _eighteen_?"

Daryl's head snaps in the direction of the table. It was Glenn who had said it. Not exactly accusatory, something less than confrontational, but it w _a_ s a sort of provocation, and though indirect the implication, this morning, is clear. 'Eighteen', he meant Beth. Daryl's eyes narrow, "What's that  _Glenn_?" Glenn's eyes are on his folded hands set temperately before him on the table, he isn't looking in Daryl's direction; he isn't exactly convinced he should be broaching this. But he already has, and Daryl doesn't just let it slide "You _say_  somethin,' little man?"

" _Hey!_ " Maggie interjects.  _She's ambivalent about this as well, and maybe Glenn chose the wrong place and time to address it, but at least they can civil; Maggie isn't dead set against Daryl and Beth — if that's a thing they both want — but him lashing out at Glenn isn't helping his cause any.  
_

Daryl looks quickly from Glenn to Maggie and then back to Glenn. "You got somethin' tuh  _say_? Any of y'all?" The group falls silent. Daryl sees eyes dropping, he sees Hershel look away, Rick gritting his jaw. "You got a p _ro_ b'lem with me?" he challenges.

It seems like it will end there, that no one really is going to say anything more  _—_  it's over. But then Glenn stands, seemingly obligatorily compelled to do so. "What are you doing with Beth?" His voice and temper are level and in check, but there's an allegation somewhere lurking behind it all. Or if not, a self-imposed familial mandate forcing his hand.

The look on Daryl's face is reactionary and feral, and a little like a broken animal at bay, "You s _ay_ in' someth _in_ '? Whut you got tuh s _a_ y to me,  _Glenn_?"

Maggie watches Glenn keep his cool in the face of being snarled at. Glenn swallows and sees this through on behalf of his family, though he takes no pleasure in it. "I'm saying she's eighteen. And, and you're not."

Daryl's face screws up with disgust,  _What is it they think happened?_   _Who is it they think he is?_  " _So?_ " he spits. Glenn looks from Daryl to Maggie, who's steady eyes have remained on Daryl this whole time, and Daryl follows suit. " _You_  put him  _u_ p to this?" he throws at her.

"Leave her alone," Glenn says flatly in defense of his wife. Measuredly he looks Daryl in the eye. "I'm just looking out for my family."

Again Daryl shakes his head in disgust, "M _a_ n,  _see_ , I'h thought we  _was_  family."

"We are," Glenn nods. "We are. But,  _—_ "

"But  _whut_?"

Glenn doesn't want to say it  _—_  he loves Daryl  _—_  but Beth's his kid sister. And,  _this_ , can't be right. He looks at Daryl, "You're in the wrong."

" _Hey_!" Daryl shouts, knocking back a chair with a fractious swoop of his arm. By instinct Daryl's arms want to swing; obeying his fueled aggressive streak would mean Daryl coming at Glenn, despite Rick's or anyone's interference, snarling and cursing, but he doesn't do it. Regardless of how they see him, these people at this table are his family. "You don't know  _nothin_ '."

The group remains frozen, no one had been prepared for this. Hershel in his muted silence looks sad, Glenn conflicted, Maggie at a loss. Feeling their eyes on him, Daryl's affronted rage drains from him some, and Daryl surveys all their faces. Not finding what he sought, he shakes his head, spits, and heads off.

 


	7. Chapter 7

" _Daryl_!" Rick's heavy voice carries after him. Daryl stalks on. " _Dary_ l!"

Daryl swings around fast, " _What_ , R _i_ ck? What ch'you w _a_ nt? I didn't hear you sayin' nothin' back  _there _—__ " Daryl swings his arm in the direction they'd both come from " _—_  back at the t _a_ bles!"

Rick holds out his hands to pacify him, "Whoa, Brother _—"_

"M _an,_ don't be calling me th _a_ t. Not after your little witch hunt back there." Adrenaline pumping, Daryl's pacing is erratic.

" _Listen_ ," Rick hisses, demanding to be heard. Daryl's eyes shift as Rick leans in to him to speak. "Listen," he starts. Daryl is listening, but he's agitated and jumpy, and he isn't looking his friend in the eye. "N _ow_ _,_ _"_ Rick conciliates, "nobody's getting after you."

Daryl snorts. "Really? Don't think I'h made that  _up_. I didn't risk my neck, a hundred times over for this group, to be looked down on like scum on some redneck pond."

Rick shakes his head slowly, like he's mollifying a wild animal. "No. You  _didn't_. You didn't do if  _for_  anythin." He keeps on speaking slowly, his head still intensly close to Daryl's. "You protected this group 'cause that's who you  _are._ " Rick pulls back some, with a decided nod of his head. "We know that." Daryl's pacing is slowing, the color's fading from his face, and he's starting to listen. Rick leans straight into him, speaking directly to his face, "You l _i_ ke her. Do I understand this?"

Daryl swallows, uses his thumb to scratch at his neck; he nods. "M,hm." It's a soft, gnarled noise he's made, barely an utterance, but backed by an unknowable depth of emotion. His eyes flick to Rick's.

Understanding the circumstances for what they are, Rick's eyes flash upward to the sky. "Well listen," he leans in fractionally closer, his voice straining with intensity, "be sure you know what you're about; it's not the  _eas_ iest thing to see  _—_  people will be upset. Hershel. Maybe."

Daryl chews on his bottom lip, his eyes fixed outward on the ground below him, "Nothin' h _a_ ppened," he mutters. "Ain't no reason fer people to be gittin' upset."

Rick backs off a little, his fervency easing off, "Awl right..." he nods. "But I don't think this is about last night. It's more...  _in general_."

"Didn't know I 's livin' with a bunch of g _o_ ssips in pettic _oa_ ts," he curses. "Ain't we got bigger things tuh worry 'bout? Good Lord."

" _Jest,_ " Rick appeases, his eyes fixed on Daryl, "be  _smart_ , about this." Daryl glowers. "Just be sm _a_ rt."

"Uh,huh," Daryl grunts, kicking his feet.

"No one's saying you're a bad guy," Rick repeats.

Daryl's body shifts, and his eyes lock on Rick's as he straightens up, "Uh,huh." And he's gone.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!

It's late, when Beth finds Daryl in the blown out guard's tower. His eyes are dark, his countenance is hard, and set. He's chewing on a twig and staring up at the stars.

"Hey," she smiles, pushing open the floor door.

Daryl rises and lends her a hand to climb up. "He _y,_ " he mutters.

Beth looks at him with her lips pressed tightly together, her dimples barely visible. "Didn't see you today."

Daryl moves away from her, walks to the railing, and leans out into the night air, warm, thick, and heavy, and alive with the whirring of crickets and cicadas. He watches the darkness, the moving shapes, the burning stars, the reflection of the moon in the creek. His head shakes. "Naw."

Beth senses something's changed with him. She can't think it's got anything to do with them, as flimsy a 'them' as they are, but she doesn't try to find out. She joins him at the railing, and looks with him, out into the night. After some time Daryl looks at her, and blinks. More than anything he likes she isn't pressing on him to speak. He rubs his eyes.

"There was this  _o_ ne time _—_ " he breaks the silence, beginning his story like he was somehow already in the thick of it " _—_  when Merle had been sick for d _a_ ys. Had the measles." Daryl shakes his head. "Only kid we knew that year tuh git the measles. And he was laid up in our room for a w _ee_ k. But M _e_ rle, he don't stay in bed  _—_  even when there's a girl in it; 'specially when there's a girl —" he smiles to himself. "Anyways, Merle's standin' up but he's deh _y_ drated as hell, an' runin' a fever. He'd been lyin' in bed for three days. An' genius gets it in his head to climb the neighbors' roof and split the cable. He 's tired of soaps an' kid's stuff, an' prob'ly hopin' to see some tail. Or some bl _oo_ d. Only problem was, Merle didn't know whut the hell he was d _o_ ing. Plus he was s _i_ ck. He no sooner got up that roof as fell  _o_ ff it." He glances at Beth to register she's following this story — how she's receiving it. "Broke his leg in two pl _a_ ces. Dumbass got himself shut up in that bed another couple days. Plus a cast over his rash." Beth listens, waiting to see if there's something more, something that's making him remember this story, something that's making him tell it to her now. "I'h dragged 'im all the way to the hospital in a damed rusted ol' R _a_ dio Fyler. B _u_ mped his stupid ass the whole way. Weren't no money for a cab. B _u_ s wouldn't take us."

Beth looks at him; she blinks, "Where were your mom and d _a_ d?"

"My m _o_ m?" he says to her. "Workin, prob'ly. Coulda' been at her b _o_ yfriend's fer all I know. She wasn't ar _ou_ nd. She felt bad after, but she weren't th _er_ e. M _er_ le never forgave her."

"An'," she treads lightly, "your d _a_ d?"

Daryl looks at her. "He was there. Settin' in the h _ou_ se. Wasn't gonna be bothered with no broken leg. Not when there was beer in the fridge, and a game on TV." Daryl peers into the night, his eyes narrowed and fixed, remembering back through the years to being that desperate little kid in that house. "Called Merle a c _a_ ndyass. Beat on m _e_  for bl _u_ bberin'." The memory is vivid but still Daryl is detached as he retells it. "Callin' me a cr _y_ baby, cuz my big brother's leg 's turnin' blue." Daryl shakes his head, biting down on his twig. He exhales, pulls the twig from his mouth, snaps it, and chucks it to the ground below them. "Never can tell how people'll react."

Beth looks at him. There's nothing to say. The cicadas echo in the field, the sound is almost otherworldly. Daryl shakes his head at himself, and rubs hard at his face. Then Beth smiles at him, small and quiet.

"Come to bed, Daryl. Come to bed."

 


	9. Chapter 9

It's on watch the next day on the cat walk when Daryl looks up as a shadow blocks the sun. Squinting, shielding his eyes, he sees it's Hershel standing there, with gloomy eyes, his mouth set in a soft frown. "You know, son," he speaks gently, "she's very young _—_ "

"Listen old man _—_ " Daryl straightens, hurling out his unwarranted offense " _—_ I  _ai_ n't your son." Daryl gestures off-handedly with his crossbow, "I ain't Gl _enn_."

"No," Hershel agrees somberly. "You're not."

"You're  _point_?" He's not angry, he's the kicked dog, biting back before struck again. All this aside Daryl loves Hershel, he does regardless, but his back is bristling and he can't back himself down.

Hershel sighs and looks at him, his feeling doleful eyes are making Daryl uncomfortable, and he's working through it with aggressive impatience. Daryl's eyes roll, and he exhales, regrips his cross bow **,**  and eventually looks back at the old man. But Hershel doesn't speak again till he's sure Daryl is listening. "I didn't like it. I don't think there's any secret in that." He pauses for impact. "She's too young for you. You're..." Daryl arches his eyebrows, challenging Hershel to finish that sentence. He doesn't. Hershel instead shakes his head. "Before the world ended I wouldn't have _—_ "

"You wouldn't 've talked to me," Daryl cuts him off. " _Yeah_?  _And_?"

"And I would have kept my girls far away." A hulking decaying walker trudges past the east fence. They pay it no notice.

"Look," Daryl grunts, "I  _get it_. You think I'm trash, ' _s that it_? It's  _a_ ll r _i_ ght for me to do all they heavy liftin' but _—_ "

" _Daryl_ ," the aged farmer interjects, "what I'm saying is: I guess I would've been wrong." Daryl flinches. There's a twinge in his eyes. He'd been all set against opposition; this turn has gotten the better of him. Hershel continues, graciously looking past the evident impact his words have had, "And things are so different now. What I'm sayin' is, you're a good man. You've done right by our group. Over and over." Hershel pauses and blinks. "We depend on you."

"' _But'_?" Daryl derisively masks his discomfort.

"But this isn't about that." Daryl looks at him, his eyes squinting in the sunlight. "I have my concerns," he says plainly. "I'm not sayin' they're about you." Hershel sighs, admitting, "I want Beth to be happy. There's not a lot of that left in this world." Daryl nods, mutely. "You know, I've lost two wives; first Maggie's mother to cancer, then Bethy's to, this... new cancer in the world. It broke my heart — both times — to lose my wives, but I've had two great loves. And, I can't see much in our survival if there's no room for that for young people in this new life we've been left in." Hershel peers intently at Daryl, "I want my girls to be happy."

Daryl takes some time to allow this to set in, then scratches the back of his head, "Yeh." He nods. "All right."

"So, I'm going to hold my judgment on this," he says. "She's eight _ee_ n; she's grown up. She's had to. I'm not going to tell her 'no'." Daryl glances at him. "I don't want to know that wouldn't work." Hershel blinks. "So, I guess we'll see how it goes." He looks at Daryl. "I know you'll keep her safe."

"Would if things weren't this way too," Daryl mutters. He wouldn't have to like Beth to have her back. She's a part of the group, that's how it goes. You don't play favorites with life and death. You just don't. You get in, do what needs doing, and get yourself and your people home.

Hershel nods, "I know that." Daryl looks after all of them  _—_  Judith, his girls, Carol, the Woodbury newcomers. He'd seen him out there working to find the girl Sophia last year. He had Glenn's back and Carl's and Rick's and his. Daryl Dixon didn't have to love his daughter for Hershel to know he'd be looking out for her. If Hershel would have judged Daryl in their former lives, at least he knows now he would've been wrong to.

Daryl looks at him, makes his peace with the old man, nods, and swings his bow round to his back. "Okay then."

Hershel nods too, "Okay."

 


	10. Chapter 10

"Hey, Girl." In the side yard of the prison, Daryl squints up through the bright sunlight at her as she passes. Daryl hadn't slept in her bunk last night as he had the night before. She would have welcomed him had he come, but it was late when he'd returned, and with so little words spoken, the gentle invitation of her hand reaching out to him in the guard tower that night was not easily decipherable as  _open._ Neither playing coy, neither means to be presumptive. That there is a connection, and some kind of unseen likeness, is understood; still little else is.

When he'd followed her to her bunk that night, after the guard tower, once more they'd slept in their clothes, though Beth did at least remove her boots, and he his. And though awkward at first — the shifting around one another, the sitting on the side of the bed with averted eyes, the wordless putting out of the light — behind each guarded look or hesitant movement was the knowledge that they had done this already once before. When their heads met her pillow, and she once again found her place, nestled within his arms, the awkwardness faded, the stark absence of words dissipated, and their breathing slowed, sure, and steady, and constant. Sleep had not come quickly, and so they laid in comfortable silence, their resting bodies sinking into her mattress and blankets, her thin jeaned legs tucking one of his between hers, listening to the other breathe. She would have expected so much of it to be strange — lying in a bed this close with no words, with not even a kiss, lying in a bed with a grown man, with Daryl Dixon, but in the moment as it happened it had not felt strange.

She likes now that as he sees her in the yard there is not the distance of unfamiliarity between them: He knows her, and he calls her, and Beth laughs a bright warm, sunshiny smile back at him. It's so bright, and open, and so very  _Beth,_  it's hard for him to sustain eye contact, and so down his head ducks, looking instead at his bike he's sitting on. But he can't break away that long, not while she's there beaming, presumably just for him, and so his eyes lift back up to hers, and the smile she's smiling deepens. And he looks at her, and thinks about that face, that cute, girlish face; it doesn't even seem real.

"Hey." Sitting there casually astride his bike, Daryl doesn't quite look like himself; he appears younger somehow, rendered so by a navy tee she'd freshly washed for him. She'd thought it would look good on him — it's not ripped up or torn for one thing — and she'd thought it would be soft, more comfortable in the summer heat than what he's got. The thing is old, and has been washed to supreme softness; whatever band logo runs across the front of it is now barely visible, but it isn't about the shirt — he could use it as a rag for all it really mattered — it's about  _them_ : Quiet. Soft. And there. She smiles again at him, at his bike, "You going out?"

Daryl squints at her, looking at where the light hits her on the slope of her slender neck. "Uh, uh, maintenance. Why?" He nods at her, "Whut're you doin'?"

Beth shakes her head, "Nothing."

"Not on watch?"

"Uh, uh."

Daryl's not sure what more to say to her, what more to say without saying too much — how to keep it going, but keep it them. Daryl can talk to anyone, that's never been a problem, and he can talk to girls — ain't no different than talking to anyone — but, he likes Beth, and he hasn't liked someone like Beth in a long time, maybe never. "You, wanna…" he scratches the small beard on his chin. "Wanna, go for a ride?"

Beth smiles at him, and looks at the bike, "On that?"

Daryl looks down at the bike, kind of like he's checking it hasn't changed into something else without him seeing, "Sure."

"That's not a waste of gas?"

"M'bye."

She smiles. "Jist, come walk with me." Her blue eyes glance up to the sky of the same hue. "It's pretty today." Daryl's brow arches skeptically. "It'll be getting cold again, soon; heat's already burning off. We should enjoy it while we can."

Daryl looks at her, and spits to the side, "Words to live by." He nods. "Al'right." Beth takes a step backwards, inviting him with her eyes, in a manner close to taunting him, to follow, and he ushers her off before him with a wave of his hand and a broken smile, "Git goin'."

Daryl smiles, shakes his head to himself, and dismounts the motorcycle and strides along side her, around the perimeter of the prison yard, down by the planting, down to Michonne's horse. Daryl swipes a stalk of tall grass and works the blade between his thumbs as they walk.

He whistles with the grass blade as Beth leans over the railing, calling the horse to her. She pets it's nose, speaks soothingly to it, and nuzzles her face in its neck. Daryl too pets the horse, patting his neck and clucking at him. "You ride?" she asks.

"Not much." He looks into the animal's large eyes, tenderly strokes his hand down its jaw. "That horse of your dad's threw me pretty hard."

"Oh," she laughs, "I forgot about that."

"Weren't funny," he grunts. "Got the sc _a_ rs to prove it."

"I'h ride," she remarks serenely. "I d _i_ d," she corrects. "Western and English. Jumping. I used to win ribbons."

Daryl eyes her, "Used tuh wonder who did that. All that," he wags his fingers, "prancin'."

"Me," she smiles, despite knowing he'd been slightly mocking her. "I was good. I's co-captain of the equestrian team. Would have made it to Nationals, maybe, if..." She swallows. And forces a smile... "I was good."

"I never seen you ride."

Beth shakes herself out of the past, and shrugs. "He's Michonne's horse." She adds, in case that's not enough, "They're never here for very long. 'Sides," she smiles a little, "Judith." Daryl nods, wondering if maybe there's more to it, but he wouldn't venture to guess what. "Ya know what?" she asks him, smiling at the horse she's stroking, instead of over at him.

Daryl glances at her, then looks back at the horse, letting it be the thing in common between them; his eyes do not return to her for some time. "Whut?"

She's nearly twinkling standing there, "You should kiss me."

Daryl keeps on looking at the horse, sneaking a sideways downward glance in her direction. "Yeh?"

"Mm,hm."

Daryl's getting ready to laugh it off, or chide at her, or walk away, but then her hand's in his. Just suddenly there in his, steady and sure. Suddenly that field is electric.  _Who knew such a simple touch could light such a spark?_

Still he doesn't look at her, and she too carries on looking straight ahead — at the horse, at the crops, at the tall grass and wild flowers, but not at him. She knows what his face must be doing though — flinching in conflict.

"I d _o_ n't m _i_ nd," she says simply.

Daryl jerks and looks at her, "'M _i_ nd'  _what_?"

"Whatever you're thinkin' I will." Beth kisses the horse's nose, and smiles. "I know you, Daryl Dixon."

She couldn't have said it simpler, or sweeter. There's nothing more this girl could have said or done to tell him she's on his side. There's enough already, has been enough, for him to know it. It's the knowing though, that's hard.

Beth is his, quite literally for the taking, her hand already set in his, but, he does not kiss her. He doesn't know that he should. This girl can't know him, what he's done, how he lived. The world's changed, and him with it, but it didn't change everything. The old days, they're still there in him. No point in acting like they're not. And that's a big thing for her not to know.

So often Beth says something, that to anyone else would be  _the_  thing to say, but always manages to flay Daryl Dixon. He isn't known, not really. Least not all of him. And he's second guessing himself. Again.

The age thing isn't it — if Glenn was his age and Maggie was Beth's it would be all right. So, it's not age that keeps him from kissing the girl who wants to be kissed by him. Maybe it's a part, but, it's something much more. It's  _them_. What makes her what he wants is what makes him think he maybe shouldn't get it. He can't hang his hope on just one person.

It's hard to hold on to people in this world. Harder still to lose them. And they've lost so many already. Too many. Among them Sophia. Merle. Andrea. Almost Carol. When Rick lost Lori he nearly lost it all. Maybe it's better not to get that close. Beth Greene is so easy to hope with.

Would it hurt more to lose Beth than to walk away and keep things as they've been? He can't answer. And until he can he can't act. His expression clouds, and slowly Daryl shakes his head, "You don't kn _ow_  m _e_."

"I d _o_. Enough."

His eyes dart to her and away again. "Forget it," he mutters, dropping her hand. "We can't do this." He feels her eyes on him as he extracts himself from her, making an excuse to get away. "I got watch." Daryl leaves her, climbing the grassy slopes back to the yard, back to the cell blocks, back to the group that's been his family for three years.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Had a little trouble pulling this one together, may go back and revise...
> 
> If you're frustrated by that non kiss, so am I. (Yes, I know I wrote it.) I don't know why I shut them down like that. Sorry! Guess I had to live up to my "angst" tag. :-/ I really don't know that Daryl would fight it this hard, but since he's been so chaste, I didn't want the switch to be so easy. Anyways, please keep reading, it won't continue on like that indefinitely. Also, as you saw, I took some liberty with re-appropriating the 'last man standing' conversation from S4 "Still" to something similar offscreen at the prison. Obviously, I never have, never will, own anything of TWD (save for my much beloved DVDs & comics).


	11. Chapter 11

_SPLURGHHHHH!_

_SKRAASH!_

_SPLUDD!_

At the fences Daryl takes out walker after walker, thrusting his knife through the chain links over and over again as the sun drops lower behind the horizon. His grip on the hilt never lessens as he works as a one man cull crew. He's been at it for some time.

"Hey. Daryl." Daryl, more than bloody by this point, turns immediately. It's Glenn, standing back, talking in that docile way he has. Daryl's right hand, his knife hand, is jumping at his side. The momentum of continual kill thrusts is still coursing through his tensed arm, but he takes a step back on his heels, moving back from the outer perimeter fence. "Think you've had enough?" Glenn asks. "You've been out here a while."

Daryl looks at him, and at the fence. He shifts his weight and wipes at his brow. He shrugs his left shoulder, "They keep comin'; gotta keep on it."

Glenn takes a step forward, nodding with an amiable scoff. "That's true." He moves closer to the fence and pulls a gator machete from the fence supply and steps up. He nods at Daryl, who eyes him, then nods in return and both men go back to the clearing.

_SCLUDD! SHLURPSH! SKRAAASH!_

"You missed dinner," he says, glancing at Daryl before plunging his blade in the head of what remains of a mail carrier.

"Ain't h _u_ ngry."

They keep at it, driving their blades through.

"Maggie made you a plate. It's waiting for you."

_WROKK! SVLAKK! SVASSH!_

"C'n feed mys _e_ lf. Been doin' it for y _ea_ rs."

Glenn looks at him, and shakes his head in a little smirk. "That's a great 'thank you', Daryl."

Daryl holds back his knife and half smirks at Glenn, "This you two sayin' your s _o_ rry?"

Stopping, and stepping back, Glenn lowers his machete. He looks at Daryl, "We didn't mean to be assholes."

"Oh.  _You didn't_?" Glenn cracks a smile at Daryl's deadpan accusatory facetiousness about what Glenn and Maggie did or didn't  _'mean_ '. "Well," he wipes his brow again, "ya know what they say," he spits dispassionatley from the side of his mouth, "road to good intentions 's paved with h _e_ ll." He flashes Glenn a momentary grin, then retires his knife to its casing.

Glenn responds with the obligatory appreciative snort. "Really Daryl," he assuages, "we _—_ "

"St _o_ p."

"It's not  _you_."

"Mm,hm."

"Well..." Glenn hesitates, not knowing what else there is to say. He nods in the direction of the prison, "You coming?"

"You sure I'm  _welcome_?" Daryl retorts dryly, finding a little retributive pleasure in needling Glenn. " _Won't be, messing up nobody's plans_?"

"Daryl," Glenn shakes his head tiredly. "You can't fault me for looking out Maggie's sister; she's family."

"News to me I'm the pr _o_ blem," he retorts.

Glenn cocks his head to one side, "Just, come back with me. Eat something. Spend some time with the group. You're not helping yourself out here."

"Gr _ou_ p's the one with the pr _o_ blem," he points out.

"Just, come on." Glenn hangs his weapon back in place on the fence and heads back to the cell blocks. It takes him a minute, of standing cock-hipped on his own, thinking things over, before Daryl exhales, hitches his pants waist, and follows after.

...

In the common room alone Daryl sits on the steps shoveling through the meal Maggie'd set aside for him. The others have retired to their cells, or are in the showers, through the echos of the quiet tombs he can hear at least one of them running. The cell block flickers with the light of candles, flashlights and lanterns, and all is still.

He thinks about Maggie. And Glenn and Hershel. Carol, Sasha, Tyresse, Carl. The  _group._  And Beth. Him being with her won't hurt the group. Fact. It'll only hurt 'em to the extent the group  _believes_  it will. Daryl comes back round to Glenn. Glenn loves Maggie, he's taken on her family. It hasn't made him vulnerable, it's made him stronger. Glenn would say it's worth the risk. Any risk. Even ending up alone. In his mind he considers _—_

There's a soft padding on the concrete coming from C Block. Daryl glances up.

"Oh." She startles and stops short at the gate across the room from him. "I, didn't see you. Didn't think anyone was out here." Beth smiles faintly. She's in her summer pajamas, her hair pulled up in a wispy ponytail. In her hand's a small head lamp and her book.

"Can't sleep?" The left side of his face crinkles as he speaks. Daryl wipes his hand on the knee of his pants, waiting to watch her move in slightly further into the room.

"Uh,uh."

Blinking at her, Daryl sets his bowl down beside him on the steps. "Gonna read?"

Beth looks at the book. "Maybe." She also looks at him, her eyes dropping down to his shirt, his arms, his face and his hands. "You're pretty disgustin'," she observes.

"I 's working the fence."

"I can see." She stands there, shifting her weight to one leg, flexing her toes on the cool concrete like a dancer.

Daryl holds her in his gaze for a little longer, then breaks off and looks away. His lower lip caught in his teeth, Daryl worries his fingers, touching each end to his thumb in turn. After a moment more he clears his throat. "Gonna wash up." He rises, sets his bowl in the wash bucket, pulls a flashlight from the selection on the shelf, and makes for the dark hallway, turning the corner to the showers.

Beth moves for one of the tables, but before she sits there's a light signal whistled from somewhere in the near darkness. She knows that whistle. Beth abandons her book and her headlamp and crosses lightly to the doorway. But does not pass through. She leans there against the open gate, remaining in the partially lit common room, so close to the unseen one who'd called her.

Daryl had had the intention of making it all the way to the showers, to remove the blood spattered clothes, stand under the icy shower water, and scrub off the blood and the grime. But another desire had taken hold. Walking away from her was no longer feasible; self-discispline has its limits. And so he stopped, and unarmed with the words or the moves, leaned back against the wall, just on the other side of where she is, and waits there in the dark, giving this, his desire for her, precedence over all else.

Pulses quicken. Though separated by a ninety-degree angle of cold cinderblock and concrete, the intensity of their proximity to one another is palpable. There is a longing there, deep and ardent, and very, very still. The two are motionless, leaning into one another, closer and closer, with the stone wall between them. Their breathing slows but their heart rates accelerate. Anticipation brings a rush of blood to their faces and ears; and their lips, ever so slightly parted, moistened and at the ready, wait. There is a fierce yearning for contact.

His forehead finds her first. Leaning in, his brow meets hers, just. Two pairs of eyes flutter shut, and all movement stops. The space between them is fractional, but deafening.

With great stealth his lips find hers in the shadows, traveling the impossible distance of less than an inch to get there. Reaching her, finally, Daryl holds her face to his, fiercely angling her to him, pressing himself so tightly against her. His tongue finds hers and Daryl, who for a split second may have been in danger of imploding, takes hold of her in his arms, so solid and steadfast, and kisses her, taking her on, taking the responsibility on. Letting her in, and keeping her close. Daryl kisses Beth, and she him, till they're short of breath; till their lips hurt from their fervency. It's not fear, or pain, or grief that's overtaken them this powerfully, and the sensation of that is so foreign it is daunting. Breaking away Daryl buries himself in the softness of her neck and the sweet smell of her hair.

 _These past three years, the wretchedness, the terror…_ Daryl shuts his eyes and breathes her in; thrills at the warm touch of her skin, her lips at his ear, her arms round his back.

This is how it felt when the group had found each other again, meeting up on the highway after the Greene farm fell. This is how it felt when they took the prison. How it felt when Judith survived her first day, and when he found Carol alive and not dead. But this is better. Because it does not stem from horror. Or tragedy. This is the embodiment of hope. And they hold on.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Walker killing onomatopoeias as they appear in Kirkman's comics. Again, NOT mine. :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has read, subscribed or kudoed(?)! and especially to everyone who has taken the time to review and to give specific / thoughtful feedback; it means so much! (I hope I can keep going with this)

And that was it. Neither ever looked back. Being together is organic, almost innate; they take to it so easily. She is beside him when the group meets, he is near her in his spare moments. They are on each other's minds and in each other's inner lives. If there is a run, it is the other's face they look for first upon return. She eats when he eats. He sleeps where she sleeps. They talk quietly with one another, they sit together in the evenings. He sometimes in passing just touches her hair, and sometimes she'll reach out and take hold of his hand. They are not always together, and are mostly discrete, but their natural instinctual coupledom is evident to everyone in camp.

Those who don't care don't notice, and those who do care, tolerate it. 'Tolerate' is too strong a word. Not one among the group wishes either one to be alone, or unhappy, or is looking to position themselves to pass that kind of judgment, but in such close quarters, the redefinition of their dynamics is not as effortless to those who are not Beth Greene and Daryl Dixon. The group needs time to adjust, and to shift. It'll happen, they only have to give it time...

* * *

Glenn pulls off the highway onto the dirt road behind the thundering motorcycle. Daryl cuts his engine and the SUV parks behind them. In the morning Daryl, Glenn, and Carl had cleared a pantry in a rural community center; it was an easy take and a decent haul, and now with daylight to spare they're heading into the woods to hunt. Daryl had been training Carl, figuring it's not smart for him to be the only one knowing how, but the lessons had come to an abrupt stop on Carl's end.

Carl swings open the passenger door and lets it shut loudly behind him. " _Carl! Shhhh!_ " Glenn warns him. Carl, gun in hand, stalks right past Daryl, narrowly missing running into his elbow as he balances his bike.

"Hey, K _i_ d," Daryl calls after him, but Carl doesn't even pretend to acknowledge him. Watching after him, Daryl spits off to the side, "Suit yourself." It's been like this with him for weeks.

" _Carl_ ," Glenn says bringing up the rear, "stay close."

Daryl hops the roadside fence and trudges through the underbrush towards the wooded area beyond the road. He passes Carl, who turns back on him long enough to mutter a bitter accusation, " _Twenty-two._ " After which Carl scrambles over a log and ducks under the branches of a great mossy tree.

Daryl turns round, squints, and arrow in hand cups his ear, " _Whut's that_?" He'd heard. Carl knows he heard, and glowers. Daryl smiles at himself for a second as he takes two strides back to the boy, forgetting for the moment the tracks he'd almost picked up.

Carl stops and confronts Daryl, leaning forward a little in accusation as he does, "You're older than her by  _twenty - two - years_."

Maybe Carl hadn't actually seen something really happening between himself and Beth, at least not immediatley, but four years is all that separates them.  _If four is insurmountable, what is twenty-two?_

Daryl looks him over; his eyes narrow as he considers a response. This isn't a competition. He nods soberly. "Yeh; something like it."

"It's disg _u_ sting," Carl sneers and spits on the ground. Even Carl himself knows he won't hate Daryl forever, and he knows he's going to have to get over this, but for the present he's indulging himself in self-righteous disdain for Daryl Dixon. He only came out with them today because there hadn't been a run he'd been allowed to go on for a while and he was growing anxious to get out and  _do_ something. And he wasn't going to be made to explain why he didn't want to go. So he's there,  _brewing_.

"Listen little man—" Begrudgingly Carl meets Daryl's eyes; Daryl blinks at him. "All I can say is, it's not gonna change." Carl looks away and Daryl watches him for a second then drops it and heads back into the woods, scanning for any track that is not the dragging, halting print of a walker.

* * *

Daryl and Glenn pull into the prison yard drive and park. Daryl unstraddles his bike, slings off his crossbow, and surveys the faces. She isn't there. "B _e_ th!" he hollers as he sets about unpacking his gear.

Rick steps forward, first taking Carl by the shoulders, inspecting him to see he's safe then slap-shakes fraternally with Daryl. "Hey," he looks from Daryl to Carl, "how'd it go?"

Daryl nods, "'S all right. Weren't much huntin'." They watch Carl walk obstinately away from them. "No problems."

"Good," Rick nods. "He handling himself?" he asks after his son.

"Mm,hm," Daryl confirms, absently scratching his lower lip with his thumb. "He's good."

Rick looks at him with an amused insider's smirk, "That so?" The reason for Carl's recent foul mood, directed especially at Daryl, isn't lost on anyone; least of all his father.

Daryl shakes his head, straightening his lips against a smirk, "Shut up."

The gate to Block C opens and Beth emerges and descends the steps towards the others. "Hi," she smiles slowly to Carl who's passing by her.

He mumbles at her, only meeting her eye line for a moment before moving on and heading inside, "Hey." While he's still speaking to her Carl's insolence is certainly not lost on her, and with brow thoughtfully furrowed Beth glances after him as she continues on further into the yard. There's little she can do about it, but she's sorry Carl's feeling this way. She's sorry he's feeling as though they're at odds.

Reaching the others her thoughts do not stay with Carl. "Hi," she smiles, to Rick and to Daryl, as well as to Glenn, who's behind her loading his arms with a box of supplies they brought back.

"Hey," Glenn nods at her with a smile. From right beside her Daryl watches her absently, his narrow eyes blinking in contentment just being near her, watching her with their prison family.

"I think she's on watch," the younger Greene girl tells her brother-in-law.

"I see her," Glenn nods, squinting into the sky toward the west tower. Brotherly he lays his hand on her shoulder as he passes and goes to sort and store the new supplies and locate and kiss his wife.

"Hey," Daryl smiles at Beth, and pulls her into playful chokehold. "I'm back."

"I s _ee_ ," she giggles. Still caught in the crook of her man's arm Beth looks to Rick, "She's nappin'."

Rick nods at her, "Thank you." Rubbing his bearded jaw he looks at the two of them with an arched eyebrow, smiles minimally, then excuses himself. "Thank you," he says once more to Daryl.

Alone now Daryl gnaws at her face a little before fully releasing her from his hold. She smiles at him, then pushes him back lightly and pushes the hair back off her face. Beth walks with him, taking the game to the kitchen, and with him skins it, cleans it, and cooks it, each perfectly content to be keeping the other's company.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene with Carl slamming the door and storming past Daryl was what started out as my opening scene to the whole story - it was also when I thought I'd be setting the story back on the road (remember I started this before the end of the S3 finale, I wasn't sure they'd be staying at the prison) and the whole group was there. Anyway, I repurposed this scene, hopefully it works well enough, I know there wasn't an awful lot to this chapter.
> 
> * I know the ff age difference, when specified, between B & D varies greatly; how did I arrive at 22? The age difference between the actors is 16, but we all know E.K.'s older than her character - her age is stated in S3 (sorry, I know I'm not saying anything viewers don't already know, you all know this). I came to '22' by shaving five years off of N.R., making him 38 at the start and 40 now when she is 18. [A reader said N.R. stated Daryl's season 4's age as 35 (wonder how the show came to that) so I may revise this. If anyone can point me to that interview I'd love it!] Okay, see you soon :)


	13. Chapter 13

On a quilt on the floor in the common room Beth sits with Judith and a Xylophone Michonne had brought back once from a run. They lie together, striking the tiles, tapping out a tune. Judith giggles, then so does Beth. There's the clanking and screeching above as the steel door on the second level opens from the outside and Carl enters from the catwalk. The two girls watch as he descends the long walkway and staircase down to them. "Hi," she smiles as he gets closer.

"Hey," he nods in reply. "Hey, Judith."

Beth smiles up at him, "Wanna play?" Carl looks at Beth and at his little sister. He maybe likes them best — and Michonne — of everyone in the prison, but it might take too much for him to take off his gun and sit on a quilt and play a little music. "You have that harmonica still?" Beth looks at Carl, and smiles; she smiles with her eyes wide and her dimples pronounced. Beth knows which smile she's giving him — it's a smile with rainbows in it, and sining birds, and darling baby sisters just learning to make music. It's a smile meant to reassure, and stabilize, and one that promises things can still be good. Her father wasn't the only one who had seen him execute that boy. He had been a kid, out there in the woods on his own. Just a kid, probably close to her age; and Carl had shot him. Killed him. Without passion.

_But Carl is a kid too. He can come back from this._

Like Rick says: there can be a coming back.

But, a person has to have help. Carl has help; he has Rick, and Michonne, and her dad. And there's Carol, and, everyone, really. But most of them hadn't been there. They hadn't seen. And all of them had had a childhood. One which, despite any other dangers and miseries they faced, did not include the dead rising and feeding on the living, nor the living battling in such ways to be the last ones standing. They at least had had a substantial life before this, something to shape and inform their actions now. Similarly, few of the other kids have spent much time on the road. They certainly hadn't been out there killing walkers, or anyone they once knew. In that Carl is alone.

In so many ways he is alone.

Beth though... She is not Carl's parent — nothing close — but he needs to be looked after, and shown a different way. He needs a person who's lost a parent, who nearly lost another, who's been on the road, who's seen what he's seen, who's lost what he's lost. He needs to be shown, that a person can be strong, even hard, without becoming cold. Judith is important in this Beth knows. Judith and herself.

Beth feels as though a lot of what's still a child about Carl is tied up in the crush he used to have on her. She, at least, can still make him blush. A blush is not a grimace or a scowl or a glassy untouched countenance. It's a little thing, but it's something. And if she can help him with little things — playing with his sister, making a little music, talking about a cloud — little things that can bring him back, well then that can be her job too.

Standing there aside them, Carl's thinking about joining, about what it will cost. Finally he does squat down to his sister, and taking the mallet from her baby hands he lets it dangle from his own while he continues to think. It is not an easy thing, playing the role of a child when a person is not one, even though he may very much still look the part.

"Go ahead," she smiles and nods reserved encouragement.

He looks at her, his eyes traveling slowly, like he might begin to say som—

"Hey." Daryl enters from outside, amiable and unaware he's interrupting anything. Beth sits up, Carl rises, and the baby coos and giggles. "How's Lil' Ass Kicker?"

Beth looks from the interrupted boy, who's just closed off just fractionally more, to the smiling happy baby. "She's good."

"Yeah?" Daryl says, pouring water on a handkerchief to wash his hands and cool his face. "Le's see," and he crosses to the quilt and lifts the baby, throwing her up in his arms in one fluid motion. Carl takes a step back and Beth, at least temporarily relieved from watching Judith, crosses the room to refill hers and Judith's water cups and to stretch her legs. She remains there at the far end of the room letting the other three interact as they may.

Daryl, continuously adjusting the placement of his head and chin in relation to the tiny hands that reach and grasp at his jaw and beard, makes idle conversation with Carl, "You think she'll walk soon?"

Carl looks at his sister then at Daryl. He shrugs.

"When do babies w _a_ lk?" Daryl looks to Carl then over his shoulder to Beth.

"I think," she says, "the book said at about nine months, or twelve. Or maybe later. Daddy says it's always different. Maggie walked at ten months," she smiles. "I waited till I was more than a year. Took my first steps at the Easter picnic." She looks at Carl, "When did you first walk?"

Carl blinks, and his head shakes imperceptibly. "I don't remember." If she's not misreading him, he looks sad behind that impenetrable front he's been wearing.

"Well," Beth covers brightly, "ask your dad; he'll know."

"No, he won't." Carl rarely if ever speaks about Lori, but Beth suspects he misses her, and thinks about her more than he'll let himself be conscious of.

Beth swallows, and glances to Daryl for help. "Don't say that," Daryl grunts with a face. "I never seen a dad love his son more 'n yours does you."

"He'll know," Beth affirms, crossing back to them and standing beside Daryl and the baby, feeling better equipped to combat Carl's recently cultivated innate cynicism with Daryl's authority there as support.

"It doesn't matter."

"It  _does_  matter," she insists.

"Whatever." Carl shakes his head and adjusts his holster, moving to walk away while Daryl, still holding the squirming cooing baby at his side looks at Carl like, like he doesn't know what to make of him. Daryl understands Carl, and feels badly for him, but there's something inside Carl Daryl doesn't recognize.

Carl feels the two of them looking at him, in tandem. He can't abide it, and he looks for a way to explode the moment — get them to stop looking at and thinking on him, to get them off the same team. He wants to get them off of looking at him that way. "He's old enough to be your father," he mutters.

"C _ar_ l," Daryl gestures in mild irritation, "what the h _e_ ll?"

"It's true."

"Do I look like an old man with a ponytail?" The remark was made with the intention of maybe getting Carl to break, to crack the sliver of a smile — to shake off whatever's eating at him — but in that Daryl is unsuccessful. Carl is utterly disenchanted. He just exhales, shakes his head, and glowers from beneath his furrowed priggish brows.

Beth's eyes blink twice as she looks at him soberly. "Carl…" She speaks to him slowly, like the kid in front of her might not be the kid she's known for going on three years; like this person in front of her is something she doesn't recognize how to approach. Like she needs to get him to remember something about himself. Her lips pressed pensively together, she takes a slow step toward him.

"Don't," he insists. "Just," he breathes, "d _o_ n't."

Daryl shouldn't be there; he didn't lose his childhood, his entire future, to this broken world. If he's hard, he was already that way. If anything, time has softened Daryl Dixon. Not so with Carl Grimes. With three fingers Beth turns and pushes Daryl back from her. Stoic, he watches her turn back and step closer to Carl, and he deliberates, cracking the knuckles on his right hand, then, with Judith still with him, walks away, leaving the teenagers on their on.

Beth's steady eyes never leave Carl, and she says to him when they're alone, "You don't need to be angry."

Carl jams his hands in his pockets and struggles to meet her eyes. "I'm not."

Sweetly Beth smiles. "Yeah you are." She looks at him. "You're okay Carl. You  _a_ re. We all are. We're s _a_ fe."

"You can never know that." Beth starts to counter but he cuts her off, "How many times have we thought we were safe? We're n _e_ ver safe." His voice is grave, and somewhat aged. Much more so than hers.

"You can't th _i_ nk that. Your d _a_ d—"

"He wants us to be safe," he nods. "I know. It's just that, we're not. We're just not. Not for long."

"You're safe today. R _i_ ght now. Yesterday. And the day before."

" _Tomorrow_?" The look he's giving her is a direct challenge to prove him wrong, only Beth sees all of it differently.

"You can't do anythin' about tomorrow. We never could. It c _o_ mes, and we surv _i_ ve. You can't not forgive the future for what it hasn't done yet." Carl's face screws up at her in confusion. "There has to be some ' _now_ '. Some…" and she smiles and her eyes lift as she tries to think of things for him, "comic books. And candy. And horses. And baby sisters. And family. And, friends." Carl blinks. " _I_ 'm your friend." Still smiling she takes a few backwards steps and seats herself on a metallic table bench, and so perched jerks her head at him. Taking the cue Carl sighs and dispassionately claims his place on the tabletop beside her. Beth nudges him with her elbow, "You're my friend, r _i_ ght?"

There is a space between her words and his answer, but Carl does answer. "Course."

"I thought so." Carl nods to himself and stares off across the floor into the distance. Beth adds, now that Carl seems a little more himself — a little more recognizable, a little more like he can handle a playful telling of the truth, "You haven't been 'xactly friendly…"

"To  _you_?"

"Whom do you th _i_ nk?" There's the edge of truth in what she says, but she puts it to him sweetly; reaching Carl won't be done through confrontation. He's fourteen, and a seasoned fourteen at that, but he's also still a kid. And he can emote like a kid; she's seen it.

"I, I don't think you should be with him."

"Ye _a_ h," she smiles, "I got that." And Beth laughs conspiratorially with him, "Ev'ryone can hear you stompin' through the halls." Carl swallows to ward off his shame and Beth's mouth abandons the smile and her lips purse with earnestness. "But, you're wr _o_ ng."

"I'm not saying he's a bad guy," Carl hedges, his right brow raised at her.

Beth nods, "I know."

"... It's just that…"

She waits to allow him to finish, but he says nothing more. "We're still friends," she says, then smiles knowingly, "I _know_ ," she nods, "that s _ou_ nds awful. 'Friends' can really suck," she kicks her legs, "when you hear it like this."

"It doesn't suck."

"No," she confirms; "it doesn't." They sit there. Then again she nudges his leg and looks up at him with that prim dimpled smile, "You're not helpin' anybody. Being angry. You know that." He looks at his feet, and to himself; slowly, Carl nods. "Carl—"

"Tell me the truth," he asks her, lifting his head, "would you have thought about this — with h _i_ m?  _Before_?"

Beth has no answer but to look at him plainly. "Name one thing we do now we would have done before." She looks at Carl, but he's still waiting. "...No," she tells him. "Probably not. … Definitely." She bites her lips, and rolls her feet out onto their sides. "But, what does that matter? We're living in  _now_." She brushes her hair back behind her ear, "Age? It's just stopped matterin'. Like you, goin' on runs, takin' watch shifts." She bites her lower lip in a moment of brief reflection. "We've all been living with this for the same amount of time." There's silence, for a bit, then Beth smiles faintly. "You're r _i_ ght," she tells him, "this life changes us, but, that doesn't have to be b _a_ d. You can grow stronger." She wonders if maybe she mightn't have said that bit to him. Carl already sees himself as strong. She regroups and flashes a smile at him. "You wanna know a good thing?"

"… Whut?"

"You've got t _i_ me." Her expression glitters. "In here," her smiling blue eyes flit to different corners of the prison. "We've got time. You can be happy.  _You_." She looks at him. "I promise."

"Don't promise."

"You can be happy  _today_. You just have to choose it."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally just another scene of Carl confronting Daryl and Beth, but although I liked it in itself, within the story arc it seemed a little redundant and maybe unwarranted, so I built in a little context and made it about more than just Beth and Daryl. I hope it works all right (but I really don't want to devalue the work that Hershel and Rick put into Carl during and prior to season 4). I have a couple more scenes written out with the same problem – lots of individual's characters' reactions to Beth and Daryl, but stringing them together seems to make the thing way too big of a deal for a group of people who are in life and death situations every day. I don't want TWD to become high school, even just in my ff :D I started this story as a way to show how they would get together, with the opinion that once they were the show and their lives would carry on much as they had before – where and with whom they sleep may change off screen - but Daryl Dixon would still very much be Daryl Dixon (to the extent that a little bit of that damage he carries with him being shed will allow him to be), and Beth Greene will very much be Beth Greene. In other words, now that I've written them there, this might be about it... or at least time for a hiatus shortly. Thanks for reading & thanks especially to those who comment!


	14. Chapter 14

Over the months since the Governor, the prison had become more than a place that keeps them safe, it's  _home_. They've made makeshift furniture and also brought some pieces in, also linens, and clothes, and little creature comforts. Bit by bit, run by run, the prison has transformed from the place in which they were surviving to the place where they are thriving. Food is not in abundance but the crops are starting to produce and it has been a long time since anyone went to sleep hungry. Beth is keeping track; not, just of the days without an accident, not just of the new faces and new names that occasionally come in to join them, but of triumphs and milestones, as small as they might be: When Judith started eating food, when Glenn found her father a prosthetic leg, when Sasha, Tyreese, and Maggie brought back what seemed to the group almost an entire library. There was the time when they got art supplies for the kids, and just the having of second tier necessities like soap, and sunscreen, and sunglasses and winter coats and hats. And extra pillows, and toothpaste. Though, although there are curtains and towels — little things from the old world, when put together, no matter how completely — they never trick anyone into feeling they are still living that old life. There might have been a time when that would have happened, but not now. Not after the Governor.

The walls, the beds, the gardens, the showers, the rationed (but  _there_ ) electricity, never take anyone into a lapse of sense memory. But it is a life. One worth protecting, and one worth living.

Clean teeth and UV protected skin do not make up for the loss and the horror, but they can make the difference on the days when it is hard to find a reason to keep going. Everyone has those days — though nobody speaks of them — even behind the prison walls, but most days you just go about your tasks; there are things that need doing, and that's it. Life, as they say, goes on. Even Daryl had eventually claimed a cell, though some nights he still slept out on the perch, until Beth.

And there she stands, smiling faintly in the doorway of his second level cell, "Hey."

Daryl looks up from where he lies on the bed, "Where you been, Girl?"

She watches him lying there, "They said you're leg's broken."

"Shows how much people know," Daryl grunts. "Ain't broken it's sprained." He's laid out with his leg elevated by pillows and clothing. It happened outside the fence. Something on a run gone bad, she'd just heard and came straight to him.

"It's his knee," Tyreese fills in. "Bone may be bruised. No way to tell. Your pop says there's not much to do; he's getting his kit."

"It's f _ine_ ," Daryl barks. "Quit fussin'."

Tyreese turns on Daryl who's trying Tyreese's patience with his unabating surliness. "You  _could_  have a concussion. Probably won't walk for days."

"I'll  _walk_ ," Daryl counters. " _Hell_ , I'll walk r _i_ ght n _ow_.  _Her_ shel's got one leg; gimme a crutch, I'll show you how mobile  _I_  am."

" _Dixon,_ " Tyreese commands, "relax."

Moving into the room Beth looks from one to the other, "So, what happened?"

"Some piping got the jump on me." Daryl doesn't particularly feel like giving a play by play, the damage speaks for itself.

"Water damage," Tyreese adds. "Ceiling damn near collapsed. Pipes came right down on him." He glances back at Daryl, "Lucky he's alive."

"Ain't goin' out from no damn pipe," he grumbles, and looks away when he catches Beth watching him. He doesn't want that, her looking at him that way, so he gripes to distract her, "M'bye someone should tape this thing up. Or," he gestures roughly, "bring m _e_  the tape, I'll do it mys _e_ lf."

"I'm getting it," Tyreese nods. Moving past Beth who's still near the doorway, he says to her, "Stay with him, he's got a concussion, I don't know how bad. Don't think he should sleep."

"' _Sleep?'_ " Daryl balks. "It's the middle of the day. I don't need n _o_  b _a_ bysitter."

"Just stay awake," Tyresse calls behind him, heading down the stairs to find Hershel and the bandages and tape.

Left alone Beth looks at him, and he in turn squints up at her beneath arched brows and looks. "You need anythin'?"

"Got some  _ice_?" he asks facetiously. "This water bag's not doin' me any favors." Daryl adjusts the ziplock bag of creek water that's been set on his knee, the best thing they have to bring the swelling down.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't here." Daryl scrunches his nose at her, he doesn't care about that shit. He doesn't need her there waiting at the gates for him. She's there now. Standing there, cautious, examining him from across the room several yards away. "Your head hurt?"

He looks at her. He thought he'd hate having her worry over him, but she isn't crying or wringing her hands. She isn't overreacting, or fixating on the  _what-ifs_. He appreciates that in her — a pragmatism all her own, such that none would expect to find, hid behind that cherub face and soft little voice. "Had worse," he answers, in his gritty closed-off way. Beth nods.

Truth is, if Ty hadn't been there to lift those pipes, things could have turned out differently; Michonne, or Maggie, even Glenn might not have gotten him out. But he  _was_  there, and Daryl made it back, not too much worse for the wear. And now today's just one more day of hundreds of close calls. Not even that close, the walkers didn't outnumber them by a whole lot, it was the ceiling mostly. And he's glad; glad to be back, alive and breathing, at least for one night more with her, soft in his arms, small against his side, sweet and fresh and his, for as much as he will take — "Come in if you're gonna," he grunts — which still to this point amounts mostly to kisses. (He hasn't sought or accepted more.) Daryl watches her take one step closer. "Don't b _i_ te."

"I'm not afraid."

"Whut _e_ ver," he shrugs, as best he can. "You're pretty far away over there."

"You hungry?"

Daryl shakes his head. "Sit'dwn." Her eyes flutter down to his leg, and he watches her cross the small space and take the spot on the floor beside his bed, seeing no easy way to get beside him on the bed. "Ain't gonna break."

In silence Beth raises her hand to his shoulder and holds it there. Daryl breathes, his chest slowly rising and falling as he allows his body to relax under her touch.

Beth picks at the frayed ends of his horse blanket. They sit. "I saw a hawk today," she shares, breaking the quiet. His brow cocks in interest. "Swooping up, glidin' on the air." There's a smile on her lips as she recalls it. "Beautiful."

"Gettin' to the point," he rubs sweat and dirt out of his eye, "nearly ev'ry big bird 'ya see's a buzzard." He adjusts his leg, "Peckin' at the dead, followin' the livin'. Hawk's a raptor — dangerous — but..." he drifts off in thought, "'s elegant."

"Majestic," she contributes.

"Mm,hm… V _u_ lture's just a big dumb b _i_ rd. Can't take care of itself 'cept for scroungin'."

" _We're_  scroungin'," she says, her dimples deepening like they do when she makes a point.

"Uh, uh," he shakes his head. "We're the h _a_ wk. We're l _i_ vin'."

Beth reaches and finds his hand, she squeezes it in hers. He's fine. In a little time Daryl will be fine. And while he recuperates he'll have the prison to do it in. Despite how she may have expressed it that day in the woods with him, Beth does not resent the presence of the prison fences. She loves them. Loves them like she never knew she could love a fence. They have kept them safe. They are what's allowing Judith to grow up, and gave her father the space and time to recover. They've given them farmland and room to breathe in. The fences are what makes them safe and keep them going. They're everything.

…

The night is passing. Tyresse, who'd played college football at Tulane, had wrapped Daryl's knee and Hershel'd stopped in to monitor his eyes several times for signs of a concussion. People had been in and out of the room all day, bringing him food, water, an extra pillow. Carol had sat with him for a long time, and Rick. Carl'd brought Ass Kicker. But the day had grown late, and now, judging from the position of the stars, and the moon, shining down through C Block's tall windows, he's guessing it's nearing midnight. The prison has been long asleep, the sound of snoring echoes from several cells, and the only two awake are Beth and Daryl. He's not allowed to sleep, or can't sleep, and either way she's up watching the night with him, now beside him in the bunk.

In the dim light Daryl takes her hand. She watches his fingers close in around hers. "I'm glad you're  _sa_ fe," she says. "I'm glad you're all r _i_ ght."

"I'm  _fine_ ," he declares.

"Good." She smiles. And she lifts his hand in hers, raising it, calloused and rough, to her lips and softly she kisses his knuckles. Daryl blinks as he watches, then looks away as her eyes flutter up to his. She's his, she knows, and he hers, as much as he'll ever be anyone's, but still in quiet moments between them Daryl takes respites, not taking her on all at once. But she'll take Daryl Dixon as he comes to her, and Beth snugs up against him, resting with him, the surly, scruffy, volatile bowman who's proved himself the steadiest of the group, against two pillows, a converted horse blanket, and the cinderblock prison wall. Keeping company comes easy to these two, though conversation can be exhausted. It's late, his knee is badly swollen, and there are no more words to say. Softly Beth sings, her eyes drifting up to his from time to time as she does, checking that he's with her, and she isn't on her own.

_Well this is just a simple song,_

Her dimples appear as she starts in on her nocturne.

_To say what you done_

She looks at him with a sweet smile; on the surface he's stoic and unmoved, but there's more to him than his surface.

_I told you 'bout all those fears,_

_And away they did run._

_You sure must be strong,_

_And you feel like an ocean_

_Being warmed by the sun._

_When I was just nine years old,_

_I swear that I dreamt_

_Your face on a football field_

_And a kiss that I kept_

_Under my vest,_

Beth smiles while drawing in her breath,

_Apart from everything,_

_But the heart in my chest._

_I know that things can really get rough,_

_When you go it alone._

_Don't go thinking you gotta be tough_

_And bleed like a stone;_

_Could be there's nothing else in our lives_

_So critical, as this little home._

_My life in an upturned boat,_

_Marooned on a cliff_

_You brought me a great big flood,_

_And you gave me a lift,_

_Yeah,_  what _a gift._

Again she smiles, but continues quickly on as the song beats on:

_Well you tell me with your tongue,_

_And your breath was in my lungs,_

_And we float over the rift._

Daryl blinks; he can only keep his eyes on her for brief moments of time. It is too much to take in otherwise, too much to hold within himself. He never was good at looking at people. Daryl  _sees_  everything, he's observant as hell, but  _looking,_ it's hard, it leaves him feeling open. Because, if his eyes open to see, if his mouth is unclenched and allowed to smile, somebody else might be looking into him. Beth sings on, she's singing for him, but not to him — he doesn't have to look at her.

_I know that things can really get rough,_

_When you go it alone._

_Don't go thinking you gotta be tough,_

_And bleed like a stone;_

_Could be there's nothing else in our lives,_

_So critical, as this little home._

Absently he touches his hand to his chest, touches his rough fingers to the cool stone, strung there for him by her...

_Well this will be a simple song,_

_To say what you've done:_

_I told you 'bout all those fears,_

_And away they did run;_

_You sure must be strong,_

_And you feel like an ocean,_

_Being warmed by the sun._

_Remember walking a mile to your house,_

_Aglow in the dark,_

_I made a fumblin' play for your heart,_

_And the act struck a spark._

_You wore a charm on the chain that I stole,_

_Especially for you._

_Love's such a delicate thing that we do,_

_With nothing to prove,_

_Which I never knew_

In the silence that follows Daryl looks at her, and blinks. Then, ever so slightly, nods his chin at her, calling her to him. Beth moves in, her parted ready lips just whispers from him, and he kisses her, holding her to him by her golden halo of hair.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song is The Shin's "Simple Song" from Port of Morrow, 2012. Now most likely James Mercer and co were not recording after the zombie apocalypse, but the show itself used Waxahatchee's 2012 song "Be Good." Sorry for posting the entire song (that's usually a pet peeve of mine), but there was nothing in this scene to interrupt her, and I wanted to convey the span of time they spend together, close, but without actual conversation.


	15. Chapter 15

Maggie finds Beth where she stands hanging laundry out to dry in the yard. Beth sees her approaching, smiles, then returns to her task, making no effort to stop and begin a conversation with her older sister. Maggie stands there by the line pole watching her sister, squinting at her in the sunlight. "Hi," she says.

Again Beth looks at her and gives her a small smile, but she knows Maggie's come there to talk to her, and she knows what about, and she's decided she's not going to make it easier for her. Instead Beth grabs two more clothes pins from her back pocket and presses on. "You could help," is all she says.

Maggie looks at her, then bends down to the basket and pulls out a sheet to hang. Beth hurries to catch hold the other end before it falls loose onto the dirt. As they lift the sheet over the line and pin it several times, Maggie speaks again, looking over at her sister in the early morning heat, "How are you?"

Beth gives her big sister a look to tell her she's ridiculous. "Ih'm f _i_ ne," she answers, and turns once again to the laundry basket of damp clothes and linens. Her sister though lingers at the drying line, picking at the clothes pin where it pinches one corner of the bed sheet. " _Maggie_ ," Beth says flatly, "go ahead and say it."

" _Beth_ ," Maggie patronizes warmly. "There is no 'it' to say."

"All right," Beth allows, speaking the words around the pin in her mouth. "But when was the last time you helped me with the washing?"

Maggie can't not concede this point, she hasn't done the laundry or a bulk of the cooking in months. "Beth," she says with a little sigh, "it isn't—" She stops, and starts again. "I like Daryl."

"Ehv'rybody likes Daryl," Beth answers lightly. There's a strategic airiness to her reply. Beth always could play her audiences how she pleased.

But Maggie looks past the naive gamine front and looks solidly at her sister, "Beth, I just, I don't want you to disappear."

Beth looks at her sister; Maggie's sincere in her expression and it gives Beth pause. "What do you mean?"

"Daryl," Maggie begins, "'s always off on the sidelines; a key member of the group, but, also not completely part of it. And Beth? When you're with him?" Beth's eyes, wide with listening to what is being said, flash to her sister's, "You're outside too. It's like  _he_ draws you out, instead of _you_  bringin' him in."

"Maggie," Beth begins her protestation, but Maggie cuts her off, a rebuttal isn't necessary.

"Look," she says fondly, "awl Ih'm sayin' is, we miss you; me an' Glenn. Daddy. Bethy—" Beth's eyes roll the way all little sisters' do when she's being infantilized but in that loving way that makes a person feel safe, and protected "—be happy. Of course be happy. But, don't go away. Don't disappear."

Beth, somewhat taken aback Maggie would ever feel compelled to say this to her, shakes her head softly at her sister and smiles, "I'm not going anywhere."

Maggie smiles at her through the warm sunshine and steps forward and kisses the top of Beth's blonde head, "Good." She turns to head back to the cell block but is stopped.

"Uh, uh," Beth says. "You're helping till this is done."

Maggie looks at the pile of laundry still waiting to be shaken out and hung, looks at her baby sister, and smiles like she knows she's been caught. "F _i_ ne."

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, it's been a while; thank you to everyone who is reading, following and reviewing, I so appreciate the support/feedback as I delve into writing for a fandom so new to me (writing-wise). This story kind of hit a wall for me — I have notions of scenes I want to portray, but working them into a coherent story has been proving challenging so I've just been forcing myself to write despite it, so that's what this and the next few chapters I'm still working on are going to be; I hope they're not so terrible as to drive readers away, and I hope it will come around to shaping up again. I think an essential problem is two years ago I wanted to write a Beth/Daryl story but I for some reason — I guess mostly because the show and his character have been so reticent in this respect — keep throwing up roadblocks, and I guess I'm struggling with character motivation. [Which, yes, basically sounds like I have no business writing then, but my hope is that writing through it will eventually get it somewhere. We'll see.] Thank you for sticking with it!

At the top of the steel staircase in D Block, oiling and tightening his bow, Daryl sits absently watching Luke, Molly, and Mika play some game of their own invention. He watches, his eyelids lazy, as they discuss at length the rules and parameters of the made up game. When Molly starts complaining that they're not playing fair he speaks up, "Hey—" all three children stop and look up at the regent alpha male. He flicks his wrist, waving an arrow at them, "Ya'll should go outside. Get some exercise. Get some sunlight." He scratches his bearded jaw, "Ya'll got all winter to be shut up in here."

"Daryl," Molly asks, "is your—"

"It's ' _Mr. Dixon_ '," interjects Mika, the most recent arrival of them all, having not been a Woodbury transplant like both Molly and Luke.

"' _Daryl's_ ' fine," he grunts. The laurels of leadership sit uneasily on his brow, and living on top of one another as they all do leaves little room for formality. Least of all with the youngest members of their growing group.

Molly stands and asks her question again, "Is your leg broken?"

"Uh, uh," he shakes his head.

"It's your knee, right?" Luke asks.

"Yup."

Mika blinks, "Are you gonna be all  _right_?" Daryl had been there, the day Ms. Carol had been there to save her father and her sister from the monsters — the day her family was brought in from the road. He helped save them, and the way people talk, he does the same thing every day. He has to be all right.

"Yeah, Mi," Daryl nods, tightening his scope bolts, "Ih'm fine."

The kids look at him. "Can you, still, go outside the fences?"

"Can you still hunt?"

Their questions do not faze him; time might have been when he would've let the unfiltered incessant precocious questions of children get on his nerves, but not now. Luke, Molly, Mika, Lizzie, Eryn — all the kids of the prison — if they're not family, they're something close enough to it — neighbors at the least — and they've got the right to be kids, while they can be. "Not today."

"But…" Luke hedges.

"Yeh, little man," Daryl nods. "I'm good." Gripping the banister Daryl pulls himself up, keeping his weight on his balancing hand and his good leg, "Nobody's starving."

"We didn't mean th _a_ t," Molly says, hesitant to smile at him.

"Mean what?" he shrugs it off, smiling crookedly at them and essentially hopping down the stairs one step at a time.

"Didn't mean what?" Carol enters the cell block carrying in a laundry basket.

"Hi, Ms. Carol."

"Mika," Carol smiles, and rests the basket on her hip. She watches Daryl descend the steps. "Thought you were supposed to be resting."

"Yeh, look'a me," he scoffs sardonically at this little bit of exertion being taken as anything but talking it easy; remarking dryly, "can't believe I'm still breathing."

Taking his hand as he takes the last step down Carol smirks, and reaches for Hershel's old crutch where he'd left it against the railing. "You're pitiful, you know that?" she smiles warmly.

"Yeh," he nods, beleaguered, "go' _o-_ n. Pile it on."

"Mika, Molly, Luke? Come put the bedding away, please. Mika, Honey," she passes off the basket to the tallest of the three children.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Luke, change out the pillow cases in your all bunks, please."

The young curly haired boy nods and Daryl holds out his hand to him for a high-five as he passes, watching as the children rise, take the basket, and pile the freshly laundered sheets and blankets on the large shelving structure built from old wood pallets against the wall in the middle of the cellblock. "You could let 'em play."

Carol looks from him to the kids, never rethinking her directive. "Children need to know to do their part, to know adults won't always be there for them." Daryl's narrow eyes shift and in silence knowingly take her in, measuring her frame of mind by the now unspoken-of events of the past. He bites his lip, blinks, and lets it drop. "We've all got jobs to do."

" _Heh_ ," he grunts. "Lotta good  _I_  am."

Carol looks at him with that maternal half-smile of hers, "You're worth more to us than your knee."

"Yeh," Daryl remarks dryly.

"A whole lot more."

"Got no use right now. Can't put weight on it, can't do any of the building 'r repairs around here. Can't work the cull."

"Please," she says, "keep listing all the ways you're useless; keep it coming." She shakes her head at him, "You sulk with the best of 'em you know."

"Stop."

"What are you doing in here anyway? Take over a watch; go clean and load the guns. Sharpen blades. Pick weeds; water needs pumping. You could probably dig out the trench again just sitting on the bank. Hell," she smiles at him, "fold laundry."

 _"Al'right_. I get it."

"Good." Carol smiles at him again.

"So," he takes a step past her with the crutch, "ya want me to fold your clothes?" he asks with a teasing edge. "Point the way," he smirks through his bark.

"It's all done."

" _Damn_ ," Daryl grins.

"Com'on, Cupcake. We'll find you a stool; you can run the grill tonight."

* * *

Hershel turns over his six-four piece and pushes the domino into place in the game, marking for himself another four points to the chicken scratch tally. "How's your knee?"

Daryl looks up from his own tiles, grunting as he lays down the six-two, earning him nothing. "'S good."

His next domino in hand, Hershel pauses before making his play, and looks across the library table at Daryl, "You need to rest it." He glances at him, "You weren't exactly bedridden today."

"Hmph," he grunts, "like you?" With his thumb Daryl scratches at his eyebrow then gestures at Hershel, "You were up an' walkin' pretty much  _day of_  after you woke up."

"In case it's missed on you, my leg wasn't going to get any worse; certainly wasn't going to grow back.  _You_ need to recover — you're leg'll be as good as ever if you let it heal." Daryl absently drums his fingers on the back of the chair he's sitting in in reverse, keeping his eyes fixed on the evening game he's not terribly invested in. "Daryl," Hershel says again, "the most important part of treating a knee injury is  _resting_ your knee. If you want it to recover properly, you've got to keep all weight off it." He's still holding onto his piece, seemingly waiting on making his move until Daryl says or does something, but he does nothing. "R _e_ st will help decrease the swelling." At last he sets down his tile and Daryl glances at him through his long hanging greasy hair, then sets down his four-three for a score of two points; Hershel adds the marks to his tally.

"I'm usin' your crutches." Hershel's next play pushes Daryl into the bone yard, and he smirks at Hershel before diving in, " _Ai_ n't I?"

Hershel grants this with a slow nod. "Push yourself n _o_ w, you'll slow your whole recovery down. Maybe cause permanent damage. In a day or two, we'll start applying heat, bring down the inflammation." Daryl's eyes lift to his, solemnly looking the old man over, then drops them again and nods. Finally Daryl pulls a piece he can play, but he's already got too many tiles to have any chance of winning, and in his next turn Hershel makes his final play, winning the round and scoring an additional five points from Daryl's extra tiles.

Hershel makes the tics then turns over the dominos one by one and Daryl goes to work shuffling them across the tabletop. As he draws his new hand Hershel's soft grey eyes look at Daryl from beneath shaggy oversized white brows, "How's Elizabeth?"

Daryl's hands pause mid-shuffle, it's so rare anyone, even Hershel, uses her full name, and he's not especially up for another Beth talk with Hershel, finding himself in short supply of ready answers anyway. "She's good." Without making eye contact Daryl pulls his next tiles uttering, "Hasn't gone nowhere."

Hershel nods, and puts down the double five spinner to start, and Daryl grimaces good-naturedly as the old man racks up another two points. "Daughters," he says, adding two more ticks, "don't always talk to their fathers."

Daryl glances at him with an arched brow, then plays a five-zero, "I wouldn't know."

Hershel chuckles. "No, I guess you wouldn't." Turns swap back and forth, the round moving quickly between them. Hershel rubs his leg where it fits into his prosthetic, "Didn't mean anything by it."

"Don't worry about it." Daryl taps a domino against the wood surface, absently in repetition.

Under watchful brows Hershel observes him, then sighs and his kind soft eyes crease at their corners, "Children and their fathers… It's never not complicated."

Daryl looks at him, then makes his play. "Guess not."

Daryl's bad leg starts jostling in place where it rests and Hershel's eyes land on it. "You're lucky it wasn't anything worse."

"Ain't no such thing as luck no more, there's just: not bein' dead."

"Son, I don't believe you think that."

"Yeah? Why's that?"

Hershel looks at him with meaning, holding the gaze longer than Daryl's comfortable with before he blinks, and palms his last domino, "Bec _aus_ e—" his voice compels Daryl to meet his eyes "—this life you've been living? Every part of it?" Daryl blinks. "I've been living it longer." Hershel lays down his final play, not bothering with the score sheet — he's won, by a margin. The old man pushes himself up from the table as he rises and crosses the library to the exit. "I know your story, Daryl. I'm watching you, but I know your story." And he exits into the hall leaving Daryl alone at the table with his wrecked knee, and too much in his head.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, these two little scenes feel pretty choppy still to me, and I can't say they're essential, but I don't want it all to be Beth & Daryl, and I'm trying to give their story context. That's it for now, I'm working on trying to get this a little more on track. Thanks for sticking around! :)


	17. Chapter 17

Beth looks up from her bunk when a shadow darkens her cell. Daryl stands in her doorway, his hands gripped on the frame above him; hanging there, stretching his arms and leaning further forward into the room, his toothbrush clamped down roguishly at the side-back of his jaw, he looks steadily at her. "Hey."

Beth sits up. "Hey."

"Whut'ch'ya doin'?"

Beth looks about her cell then back at him. "Right now?" She isn't doing anything, she had been reading.

Daryl nods silently, his eyes staying right on her. "Goin' to bed?"

Her bright eyes flit up to his. Though he spends more nights in her cell than in his own, it isn't a set thing or a fixed routine. Rarely does it happen that they consciously settle in at the same time — one might be on a late watch shift, or finishing work, or soothing the baby. Some nights she's come back to her room and found him already asleep, mostly he slips in beside her some time in the night. But he's there now, with an indiscernible look in his eyes, quiet, and stealthy, waiting for something unspoken. Her eyes wide and watchful, Beth nods. "Mm,hm."

She sets her book aside and rises, and at that small prompting Daryl takes a step inside and draws close behind him her curtain. Beth dips her own toothbrush in the glass of water each prisoner keeps beside their cell's sinks for just that purpose, rations out a bit of toothpaste from her crumpled nearly used-up tube, and brushes her teeth.

No further into the room than he'd first stepped, Daryl, taking support from her bunk frame when he needs it to take pressure off his knee, bends down and one by one tugs off his leather boots then single-handedly undoes his belt, his brush still hanging from his lips. Finished, and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand Beth turns from the sink toward him. He winks benignly at her, and in return she smiles primly. Then Daryl lets his pants drop and steps out of them in his bare-feet, keeping a loose grip on the top bunk all the while. His shirt remains on — as it always seems to until the lights go out, sometimes not even then — as he sits at the edge of her bed, waiting for her to take her place in bed nearest the wall. It's unspoken that this is where she sleeps, Daryl on the outside of her — Daryl always in the ready for action, Daryl between the outside world and those he holds dearest to him. It might be nothing more than unconscious instinct, but he's never slept beside her any other way.

Beth's cutoffs have been quickly replaced by her thin summer pajama bottoms, and even quicker, with her back to him, her tanks and bra are switched out for a light cotton top. There's a hole at her side beneath her arm as clothes scrubbed on metal grates don't fair well over time, but at least they're clean, and at nightfall when newly donned, have the effect of a revival — at once soothing and invigorating. Closer to him now, her pale knee rests beside him on the mattress as she stands before him, and runs her fingers through his coarse and tangled hair as he looks up at her mutely. Behind all his sweat and scruff his hard blue eyes keep fixed on her, despite, from several cells down, the blubbering fretful cry of Judith sounds. With just the slightest outstretch of his fingers, Daryl takes hold fondly of her leg, lightly stroking the soft skin of her thigh with his thumbs. Judith's cries grow louder — lately it's been much harder to put her down for the night, all she does is wail. As the baby's cry muffles and breaks now and then it is evident someone, no doubt Rick, is cradling her and bouncing her in efforts to soothe her. Touching her palm to his brow, Beth holds the side of his face as she smiles at him just before she reaches to switch off her lamp.

Within the cold padless walls of the cell block the cries turn to shrieks, breathless, unrelenting, piercing wails of an infant who cannot be consoled echoing against the concrete walls of the prison. Daryl looks at her, loosening his grip on her leg; the pitiful hapless screaming grows even louder and then—

There's a rapping on her metal gate. "Beth?" Rick's outside her room and Beth moves quickly to the curtain, already reaching for the baby as she steps through. Rick is as apologetic as he can be relinquishing the desperately inconsolable child off to the young woman. "I'm sorry."

Beth bounces her and cradles her, holding her upright, holding her close. The result is not immediate, the cries persist, but Judith clings tightly to Beth and as she cries the heaving of her small chest lessens, and she buries her wet face into Beth's neck. "It's fine," she says to Rick as he watches regrettably as the small fair figure paces with his forlorn child, whispering into her ear and humming a tune.

The cries muffle, and grow less frequent, as Beth strokes the baby's back and pets and kisses her soft downy head. Rick releases a pent up breath in one great exhale and leans back against the cinderblock wall, listening as his daughter calms herself in the care of a young girl who never should have been saddled with the job.

Beth, barefoot and clad for bed continues walking with the baby, passing through the gates into the nearly pitch black common room. The moon is only a sliver this night, and the light streaming in through the windows is faint. Beth rocks the child, and sings softly to her.

_Shadows are fallin' and I've been here all day_

_It's too hot to sleep and time is runnin' away_

_Feel like my soul has turned into steel_

_I've still got the scars that the sun didn't heal_

_There's not even room enough to be anywhere_

_It's not dark yet but it's gettin' there_

Judith's breaths slow and grow gradually more shallow, and in time her body slackens, no longer rigid and fighting but docile, and cuddly, and ready for sleep.

When Judith's settled and softly dozing, Beth passes the baby back to her father. Holding his sleeping daughter to him, Rick embraces Beth by the back of her head, pulls her in and presses a kiss to her forehead. "Thank you," he says in earnest. "Go to bed."

Beth nods, and smiles. "Good night."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Not Dark Yet," Bob Dylan, Time Out of Mind, 1997.
> 
> A/N: To clarify, while he had an understandable and very evident rough start with Judith, Rick is a parent to Judith — I am not of the mindset of re-appropriating his parental role to other characters, but that said, Beth, and other characters including Carol, do seem to spend a lot of her waking hours with her while Rick goes on runs, farms, etc. I see this scene as evidence of a phase through which Judith will eventually pass.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the feedback and subscriptions, especially as this meanders a little. Thank you! So, this chapter got a little unwieldy; not sure I totally stand by this rendition of Daryl, it's so complicated, but here it goes... :)

Returning to her room, Beth leans against the door jam and peeks in: Daryl's still up, sitting back in the bed, his good knee up, his bad one up and supported beneath by a sweater of hers he'd balled up and put into position. He looks up from her sketchpad he'd been leafing through. Suddenly there's a shy smile on his face, and she rounds the door frame, re-closing the blue curtain behind her, and steps inside, the faintest trace of a smile on her lips. "Sorry," she whispers.

Daryl shrugs as his face scrunches at her, "No reason t' be." He watches, stilly, resolutely, as she takes the several steps toward her bed, and to him.

Beth reaches and switches off her lantern and crawls over him into her bed, but she never makes it to her side; hovering above him Beth looks into his lined, rugged face, and she does not smile. Instead she kisses him, feeling his chest heave and rise beneath her. Daryl entwines his fingers in her yellow hair, twisting his forefinger in her small braid, and enjoys the weight of her slight body on his, the touch of her thin crisp cotton garments, and the brush of her lips against his. He can hear her holding her breath as she kisses him and he knows at some point she will be pulling away from him, but until she does his tongue finds hers, drawing her in to him, but never all at once, and never with full abandon. Daryl wants her, but is exercising restraint.

He can't nail why.

But Beth is not interested in his restraint. She loves him. Has loved him these many weeks, longer maybe. And so his eyes follow her as she raises herself up from him and pulls off her top. This — the vision of her above him, her messy blonde locks tumbling down about her down onto him, and her small, perfect white breasts right there before him — is by far his favorite view in this world. Daryl reaches up to touch her, cupping, kneading, pushing, and she holds his large rough hands to her, welcoming his touch, keeping it on her. In turn Beth's delicate fingers, that so much of her life were employed at her family's piano, and brushing her horse, and writing in her journal, reach down and unbutton his shirt, pushing it open and trace down his chest. Her light touch trails over his scars, over his tattoo, over numerous bruises. Electrified, Daryl allows the touch, watching her pretty face take him in as her hands do, though soon his hands slip from her to her back and draw her down to him, pulling her close, his lips meeting hers, his tried muscled arms tightly enfolding her.

Beth's mouth travels from his lips to his jaw, to his ears, and the soft nook in his neck. His breathing quickens, his arousal heightens, and Beth's with him. There is a swelling, throbbing anticipation mounting between them and he sits up to meet her, looking up into her soft angelic face as he licks and bites and kisses her chest, her collarbone, every bit of her in access to him, never breaking his lock on her river-blue eyes. Beth's hands venture to his waistband as his round back behind her, grasping her firmly, claiming her as his had she not so willingly already given herself over to him. Daryl's breath shudders and hilts as her hands find him beneath the worn fabric of his drawers, taking him in her grasp, watching him with her wide doe-like eyes as he breathes her in.

Bringing her lips to his chest, Beth allows her tongue to linger on his skin, tasting the the salt and the scent of him; strategically her hips shift on his until he visibly flinches and his eyes roll shut in a combination of pleasure and frustration. Clumsily the girl guides Daryl's hands round to her hips, asking him, telling him, to take from her her shorts and what's beneath, her last remaining articles of clothing, and with them, so, so much more.

He would like to,  _love_  to, is more than ready to, but while taking a girl to bed, this girl, Beth Greene, is tempting as hell—

When her hand moves cunningly between them again to take him in her hold, Daryl, with casual ease, reaches down and stops her — again. Holding firm to her wrist he looks her straight in her pretty fluttering blue eyes. "Hold up." His lips fractionally parted, he watches her intently.

"Daryl..." Beth kisses him, softly, tugging at his bottom lip with hers, asking him, in the best way she knows how, for him to get out of his head and to be there with her and to not—

"St _o_ p," he directs her, gently turning his head away from her, breaking the kiss, and breaking the momentum. Through angled eyes once more he looks at her. "You done this before?" His gaze drops to where her narrow hips straddle his own, then back up to her.

Beth's soft eyes blink, and her flushed lips move to speak before her words come. "I—" she starts. "Kind of. It—"

He cuts her off with a paternal scoff. "'Kind of'?" Daryl's head shakes, and one corner of his mouth lifts in the traces of a smile for her. "Whatever you did do? It wasn't 'it'.  _Heh_ ; you would kn _o_ w."

"Well—"

He stops her; Daryl doesn't want a play by play of the adolescent fumblings of her past— "We don't have to do this."

Beth props herself up and looks at him soberly. "Why's that?" The question stops him, asked with that half-laughing smile she sometimes gets that charms and cajoles him and everyone else into truth telling. Beth could laugh, or smile, or flutter-her-long-graceful-lashes him into doing anything probably, so why _is_  he keeping his foot on the breaks? On a thing he's near aching to see through?

Is it her age? Is it her evident inexperience? Is it  _him_?

All around him he's watched the people in their group slip back into some sort of regular life. There's story time, and a card group, and someone in A is trying to get a softball game going. But Daryl can't fully do it. He can't as easily slip back into the shape of a normal life. Nothing in the prison life is the shape of his norm before, and though he can relax, shoot the shit, have some laughs, he's never cavalierly shut out the threat of danger they all live under. He doesn't know what's in the others' minds, but Daryl Dixon can't ignore all that's out there beyond the fences.

And inexplicably he can't extricate that from this.

Michonne. Michonne's the only one more resistant to settling down than he is. Something about it — the settling down, the getting too comfortable, the being  _happy_  on top of  _living_  — it seems off to him. Settling down with Beth, being this close with her, making like things'll turn out all right in the end, it seems... foolhardy, and beside the point, and something like tempting fate.  _Reckless_.

Staying close to her is one thing, but taking it further, making it  _that_  real, getting  _that_  close, is it putting something at risk he isn't prepared to lose? Losing Beth, to walkers, to bandits, to his dumb-ass redneck blunderings and inevitable failings — to all of it or any of it — is not an option. He wants her. This night, the next day, down the road. For as long as he has. And keeping her, is worth more to him than—

Her hands take hold of his face, softly cradling him in her touch, drawing Daryl out of his head, out of the darkness that weighs on him, and back, she hopes, to her, and to this moment when they are safe, and they are together, and they are able to love. Daryl's eyes lift to her, he wants to take that cherub mouth with his and to keep his hands on her in unchecked passion, and the desire to simultaneously cherish and defile her all at once, rages through him. There  _is_  something to living while they're alive, and, bare-chested and breathing heavily, an earthly beauty in a messy halo of golden hair, Beth absolutely is  _alive_.

She is beautiful. Fresh-faced, nubile, and tempting as hell, and in his younger days Daryl might have taken her ten times over by now, but Daryl hopes he's a better man than he once was, and if an eighteen-year-old girl, who he's pretty sure he's in love with, isn't sure her past experience amounts to what would 'count' as sex, he's not convinced he should be taking her up on her offer just yet, the uncertainty of the world be damned. But that resolve dissipates as she snuggles in closely, nibbling at his neck, running her hands down him, and entwining her soft, shapely legs with his. Once more her artful fingers reach his waistband and once more he pushes her away.

"Wha...?"

"Beth," he says flatly. "Just stop."

Her eyes blink in her naiveté, "Daryl...?"

"It's a prick," he throws out dispassionately, edged with accusation. "That's all. I've had it tugged and sucked and fucked plenty. It doesn't matter; that's over." He shifts away from her. "We're here to survive, not get off."

Keeping her reaction measured Beth pulls herself off him and sits back against the prison wall. "You think Maggie and Glenn are any less serious about surv _i_ vin'? You think they're any less strong?" He wishes to God she'd find her shirt. "It's made them stronger," she counters. "And you kn _o_ w it."

His narrow eyes shooting her a challenge in immediate response, Daryl pushes himself up on his elbows, "You think I need to be stronger?"

"No."

" _Do_  you?"

"No."

At this point he's sitting upright, talking straight to her, no longer even registering she's in bed with him half naked. "Who depends on me?"

"Rick. The group. Ehv'rybody."

"Right. I don't know when I took that on, but I did; and I can't put that down." He looks up at her through lowered lids and his mangy hair, "Beth," his mouth hinges at one corner, "loving you — don't make me stronger I think." His brow arches as he looks at her in doubt, "I'm not Glenn. If anythin'," and he maybe thinks about saying this out loud before he does, but in the end he does say it: "you're a liability for me." Beth winces, but keeps her expression composed. "You're a distraction I can't afford if a whole group of people's looking to me. If I'm o _u_ t there, thinking about coming back to  _you_ ," he squints, and bites his lip as he grunts, "I might get cautious."

" _No_ ," she argues. "Daryl, I don't even know what you're talking about. You didn't come in here tonight to tell me I'm a 'liability'. I know that. And whatever you just said is crap. Because you  _are_ cautious. That's part of being smart. You don't trust strangers, you—"

Daryl gropes till he finds it and chucks her shirt at her. She looks at him and at it, then tugs it on. "That ain't at'all what I'm talking about." He exhales. "If I'm thinking me not coming back is going to hurt you—"

"Stop it," she orders, not even knowing how they got to this point. His reactionary attempts to back step away from her are fear driven, and while they're all afraid, she's not letting this fear take hold. "It's too late for all that," she tells him plainly. "I love you.  _There._  It's d _o_ ne. Deal with it. I  _already_  want you back. And there's nothing that'll change that. But you gotta be who you are. And you've gotta want to come back on your own, and you've gotta want to look out for the  _group_  not me. And I will love you till the day I die, but you can't take that into your hands. If I die I die. And if you die my heart will break, but it wouldn't be my fault, and it won't be yours; and I'll be God damned if I won't keep you and have you from now until then, and you're a damned coward if you try to break away from me now. It's too late. And it's no good." Finally she breathes.

Daryl squints at her with a shift in his stature, "Ya done?"

"Are  _you_? I'm with you Daryl, I  _a_ m. Don't push me away."

"Wasn't."

"You  _were_ ," she says, as always keeping him honest. "You think I'm a liability because everyone sees me as weak: I'm the one who gets sent off to hide, who doesn't go on runs, who doesn't clear. Who doesn't go outside the gates. I'm the one," she says with weight, "who lost hope and cut her wrist." Daryl grimaces; of all things he hadn't meant to bring that up. He hadn't meant to make her think he sees her that way. "But I'm not useless, I c'n take care of myself. I can shoot a gun. I can kill walkers."

"I know."

"Then..." she pauses for the words, "stop keeping me at arms length."

Daryl holds both his hands up to chest level as indication he isn't treating her the way she's accused him. Then his hands reach out and slip into her hair— "Whut?  _These_ arms?" —and take hold of her head pulling her to him. He kisses her, firmly, like he knows he should, and fervently, because there's no denying she gets to him. And that a lot of that was just blustering — he can't walk away. And maybe he  _is_  scared, of things that have been haunting him a lot longer than the walking dead. But if Beth Greene can take this on, he guesses he can stop being a pussy about it and man up.

_In his head at least._

_For at least one night more her bed remains chaste._

 


	19. Chapter 19

In the morning, like she does every morning, Beth walks the couple curtained cell doors down C block. Beth moves hesitantly into the doorway to Rick's cell as morning light just starts to spill through the long windows of the prison. His curtain's only half drawn but still she knocks lightly before pulling it aside all the way and entering. "Yeh," Rick clears his throat. "Come in."

Beth steps in quietly. "Mornin'."

"Beth," Rick rubs at his brow then sets his hands on his thighs — feeling badly and slightly embarrassed about the night before — "come in." Beth moves several steps further in, but Carl's sprawled out across the top bunk still sleeping, and she doesn't like to intrude. "Beth," the father looks up at her, his eyes still weary from his late night and his long days in the gardens, "I'm sorry about last night. I shouldn't have imposed."

"Rick," she smiles placidly, "it's fine. Really."

"It's just, when she's tired, or really upset, she—"

"I know," she nods. "She's only interested in women. I've been noticing." She leans over the crib and gives her hand to the waking Judith. "Carol. Sasha," she names absently.

"It may be women," Rick agrees with a small definitive nod, "but it's  _you_  she's reaching for." Rick stands, at a loss he scratches the back of his head, "I'm fine with her," he sighs, "most of the time; in the days. But these last weeks — at night — I can't get her to soothe."

Beth nods. "It's just a phase," she tells him. No matter her investment in the little girl, and the hours and hours she spends with her feeding her, changing her, talking to her, cradling her, singing to her, playing with her, Beth does not see herself as a surrogate parent, and is careful that Rick not lose his footing with his daughter. "Carol, all the moms, all say it's normal…"

Rick nods. "I know. I know. Carl went through it too. There was a month or two there — maybe it just felt that long — I couldn't get close to him except maybe five minutes a day. Lori never got a rest."

Beth smiles softly. "See? It'll pass. It's normal."

But Rick doesn't take it any easier, he rubs brutally at his eyes. "' _Normal_ '," he grunts. "Doesn't seem 'normal' passing your child off on the shoulders of an eighteen-year-old girl. In the middle of the night."

Beth wonders if it should bother her more than it does, it seems clearly to bother Rick. Honestly she loves Judith, and it doesn't seem to her too much is being asked of her to help out where Judith is concerned. Rick's done much more — even Carl has — for the group than babysitting. "Like I said, it's fine." She looks to him for a signal of allowance for her to go ahead and lift the baby from her bed as she would any other morning. With lingering regret Rick nods. Beth reaches down and scoops Judith up. "It won't last forever," she adds. "And," Beth looks at Rick over the baby's head, her lips a kiss away from Judith's downy head, "it isn't an imposition."

On the top bunk Carl stirs, and glancing up Beth sees him stop mid stretch as he spots her in his room. It's routine most mornings for the girl to come in the early hours and fetch his baby sister for all or at least part of the day, but Beth Greene, if not the first, is the last person he wants standing at the foot of his bunk when he first wakes up. And that she's aware of it makes it all the more awkward — "Mornin'," she smiles vaguely before turning away from him.

Carl's head drops back on his mattress. "M _o_ rn- _i_ ng," he mutters into his pillow. Still though, he's not so much embarrassed, as he is drowsy; Carl possesses that distinct adolescent air of not giving a crap about anything — whether he would prefer to be alone with Beth without his father or his baby sister, or whether he'd like Beth out of his room altogether isn't clear, he behaves as if she's nothing to him, and her seeing him undressed for sleep is no big deal. In fact it's not; whatever he'd once hoped Beth Greene would be to him, she  _is_ family. Everyone on C block is family, and sleeping in shorts and no shirt really is of no consequence to her, or even to himself. Given all this, Carl still makes no significant move to rise from bed.

"I don't know why  _you're_  in the bad mood," Rick chuckles, knocking his hand against his son's barefoot where it hangs over the bunk edge, "you slept through all the crying last night." Rick shakes his head as he fastens his belt buckle, "Don't know how."

Sitting up, Carl pulls cotton from his ears as answer. "Easy."

"Well," Beth starts, adjusting the child on her hip and reaching into the basket for fresh clothes for Judith, "I got watch midday." She looks at Carl.

The fourteen-year-old nods. "I'll take her. I'll find you guys at lunch."

"We're going to start sewing in the turnips and potatoes today," Rick tells him.

Carl nods, "I'll be there. Judith can sit in the shade, I'll bring down a blanket."

"She'll, uh," Beth interjects, "swallow the dirt; if you let her."

Carl looks at his little sister with dry amusement, "That's gr _o_ ss."

Rick tousles the teen's head with a smile, "I could tell you a few stories." Carl only rolls his eyes, then stretches. Pulling the covers off, swings his naked legs over the edge, then jumps down, and rummages around for his pants.

At this point Beth would ordinarily leave with Judith, but she lingers in Rick's cell, staying long enough for him to question her. "Beth? Something on your mind?"

Beth nods, looks down at the baby, then back up at Rick. "The snares, and traps you have out in the woods?"

"Yeah?"

"I'd like to help with that." She looks from Rick to Carl then back to Rick as she swallows slightly and smiles primly, "I think I'd be good at it."

"Beth, it's dangerous."

"Everything's dangerous," she defuses. "I want to be of more use."

"You don't need to take this risk," Rick tells her, not venturing to say she's already of great use to the prison (especially while his own child sits happily in her arms).

Beth glances at Carl, debating whether she should say this in front of him, but in the end she does, "More of us should now how to do things, Rick." The implication being (as so often it still is):  _What if something happens?..._ "We should all know how to do the things that keep us running. We just should. And I learn quickly and I'm careful." She looks at him with those earnest Beth Greene eyes, "I just want to learn."

Out of rebuttals Rick looks at her then finally nods. "Al'right. But you're gonna work on your slip knots and snare knots inside the fences first."

"Deal." Beth smiles, her dimples working their magic, and lifts Judith, taking with her a change of clothes and a fresh diaper, and leaves to start the day.

 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm so happy to be back (at least temporarily) with this story! I want to thank all the original readers who are still around, and all the many readers who have come to this story during the interval. Truthfully most of this chapter has been written for months, but I kept trying at chapters to insert between this one and the last, but couldn't settle on anything, so I scrapped it all and went with this.

 

Daryl, rising from her bed where he'd been lacing up his boots, holds on to her shoulders, pulling Beth to him. Fondly he kisses her forehead. "Gotta go."

Beth looks at him with large solemn eyes, then looks down at his knee, "You're sure you can run on it?"

"You seen me do it, up and down the yard three times over. I'm good." He took two weeks to recover, doing leg lifts and stretches and exercises every day, pushing himself, making himself well again. Daryl doesn't live for going outside the fences, he's not the restless type looking for an adrenaline rush, but not having been  _able_  to venture out has been eating at him. With Carol's prompting he's found other ways to be of use while working through his recovery, but without going on runs and hunting it's hard to feel he's pulling his weight. Today Daryl is anxious to get back out there; supplies are running low again, and with winter approaching it's more and more likely other survivors will be holing up in any place still worth scavenging — they've got to get their hands on as much as what's still out there while they can.

Daryl's forehead drops down to hers and in such close proximity his eyelids bat as he studies her face. Their lips hover, just past touching. They're not allowed goodbyes. Together they'd wordlessly but jointly banned them. Goodbyes did no one any good, but still as he holds her his grip on her shoulders tightens and his breathing deepens. It's getting harder to walk away, even when the place he is leaving her is here, with their people, behind the prison walls, with good numbers against the odds. Though he's been waiting to and training to walk out their gate, he's lingering there with his fingers tangled tenderly in the golden wisps framing her sweet face.

Beth breaks the distance between them and kisses the narrow straight line making the shape of his mouth. And he lets her, letting her hold him tightly, and Daryl lets go her shoulders to encompass the entirety of her small frame in his. He does not hold her long, knowing the others will be waiting by the car, but he breathes her in and keeps hold on this memory until he sees her again. Awkwardly he releases her but she does not let herself go until she pulls out the pick from beneath his shirt where it hangs. He watches her as she presses her lips to it, steadfastly investing in it all her love, faith, determination and good will. Her eyes glance up to his, "I love you."

Her face suddenly breaks into a smile, so bright and disarming he's distracted from any response he might have had. Beth half-giggles at her delight in him — " _Hmph_ " — tempered though it is with the anxiety that comes with a run like this.

Daryl bites his lip, and blinks; she can be hard to take in all at once, when she twinkles that way. He'd never known a person could gleam and nearly sparkle. But there she is. He'd never known there could be such weight grounding a slight doe-like girl like her. But there she is, holding on to him, not even using her arms to do it. He'd long ago abandoned the notion that strength can be quiet, and soft, still and willed solely by something so unknowable and elusive as hope. But there Beth Greene is. Waiting for him to come back and carrying the fire for all of them. He almost smiles. "Gotta go, Beth."

She nods. "I'll see you."

Daryl nods. And this time he does smile. "See you." And he shoulders his crossbow, lifts his pack and walks through the cell block and up the stairs out into the yard. Beth follows him through the cage, but remains behind the steel mesh, leaning, and watches him pack up and leave from some distance removed.

"How's your knee?" Michonne asks from where she leans against the car watching Daryl load the trunk with their packs, two spare shotguns and two more canisters of fuel.

Daryl lifts his head from his task, "Wouldn't be going if I 's a liability. I can run."

"That's not what I asked."

"'s f _i_ ne," he declares, pushing down and shutting the trunk closed hard. "Why? You got someone you'd rather go with?"

Unmoved by his surliness Michonne just watches him as he cuts round to the front of the car. "No," she says easily. Daryl Dixon's volatility is no match for her unflappable demeanor — it's easy to outlast irritable lash-outs. At least for her. "Go ahead," she invites him, "drive if you want."

"Hey," a voice stops them from getting in the cars. Carl stands there, looking at them. "You heading out now?"

Daryl blinks, "Mm,hm."

"You want anything?" Michonne asks, smiling the warm spreading smile reserved just for Carl. "Anything I should keep my eye open for?"

"Can I come?" he requests earnestly.

Daryl glances at Michonne and his forehead creases as he raises his brow; this isn't his call to make. "Gotta ask your pops. Think he's expecting you in the fields."

Michonne's eyes follow his as Carl looks critically at the small patch of farmland in the prison yard. Never one to infantilize or patronize Carl she speaks evenly, observing her young friend, "Harvest is coming soon."

"Not yet," Carl counters. "And I can  _do_ more."

"Farming's plenty," she tells him. "It's keeping us fed. All of us. More than hunting." Carl starts to object but she anticipates his next claim— "When the game runs out, when it's winter and there are no animals to be found, this farm, your dad's and yours, will keep us fed. It's important."

Carl looks now to Daryl; it's been a long time since Carl's turned to Daryl for him to be on his side. "I can hold my own," he insists. "I won't slow you down, or get in any trouble." He looks at the hunter squarely, "I can be an asset."

"I know," Daryl nods gruffly. It's hard to say 'no' to the kid now that he's finally saying something to him  _not_  in the form of an accusation; on the other hand it wouldn't hurt Carl to stay out of the world a little longer, get his hands dirty with soil rather than walker blood, or worse. "Naw," he says softly, nodding at Sasha who's joining them at the car, "not this time." Daryl opens the driver's side door as Sasha and Hank, a recent addition to the prison, climb into the back from either side. Holding onto the door frame in font of him, Daryl nods at the boy, before ducking in, "Keep an eye on the place."

Michonne looks once more at Carl then opens the passenger door and takes her seat beside Daryl, "Get the gate?"

Carl looks at her oddly, then nods, runs and pulls open the gate, closing it after them with Karen's help.

With one last look in the direction of the C block cage and the person who stands there privately and quietly seeing him off, Daryl drives them down the gravel drive through the woods, up the paved road, and onto the northbound highway. They're going far today, eventually east. They have to go north first, there's a massive herd they've got to circumvent before they can get to where they're going. There's a remote lake town, mostly vacation spots — summer homes for the rich, not little cabin rentals. The hope is there's still untouched supplies there, that maybe not a lot of raiders have come through there, and that maybe it's been less populated with survivors, and less ht by walkers, than places closer to the highways. It's a chance they're taking,traveling this far, but they've been talking about it long enough it's time to risk it or forget it. If they make it there, and all goes according to plan, they should be back in three days.

...

Hours into the drive, the midday heat penetrates through the old car, and the three passengers and driver sit there sweltering, wishing Daryl'd been able to fix the broken air conditioner. All this talk about the changing of the seasons and winter coming is difficult to heed on days when the temperature is as oppressive as this. They drive on, with all four windows down, letting a warm breeze rush steadily over them. It's lulled both Sasha and Hank to sleep in the back; both silently doze in the sun, drops of sweat bead on their foreheads and pool on their necks.

Michonne looks into the rearview mirror and smiles. Rolling her head back she looks over at Daryl. "You doing all right?"

He nods, holding his left arm out the window against the car-created wind, "I'm good."

She lifts her booted feet to the dash and leans back in her bucket seat in a comfortable slouch. Daryl glances at her from the corner of his eye and though she appears relaxed and at ease, her question that follows her mind is very far from this quiet sun-soaked country highway; she looks at him, "You think Carl's all right?"

Daryl looks at her again, "You're asking m _e_? Kid's barely said two words to me outside of hate in m _o_ nths."

Staring out the dusty windshield Michonne shakes her head. "He doesn't hate you." Daryl shrugs and drives on. He'd rather Carl didn't hate him, but there's not much he can do about the circumstances. "He's confused," Michonne adds. Daryl nods. With everything that's happened to the kid, how could he not be? She picks at the heat-cracked upholstery, "You think he'll get over it?"

Daryl flashes a glance at her he doesn't want to hear his thing with Beth's really messing the kid up. "Git over, wh _a_ t?"

Michonne looks at him, like it should be obvious, "He's not okay," she says with finality. She expands further, "He's just a kid. He's seen and done too much."

Daryl listens, considering, and clears his throat, "Ain't no way to avoid that now."

"He can't keep going like he has been."

Daryl's eyes stay locked on the road ahead of them, he navigates around a pileup of a pickup, a family sedan, and a UPS truck. The wreckage is old, and neither Daryl nor Michonne pays any notice to the burnt-out crushed vehicles and the carnage that long ago ensued. "Rick's got him," Daryl reflects with assurance. "He'll keep 'im square."

Michonne blinks. Of people all people in camp who know about coming back, Rick's at the top. Carl will be okay. Rick will see to it. And Hershel, and herself. And Beth. She glances again at Daryl, "He still on you  _about..._ " her slow smile says all it needs to, she doesn't have to speak the word, ' _Beth_.'

Daryl drives on, but shortly thereafter, whether because of the long quiet drive, or because it had been somewhat broached already, or because he respects Michonne's opinions, or because Beth, and her glittering eyes and girlish smile, and those words she spoke to him are still lingering in his mind, curiosity strikes; his eyes shift to her covertly, "You got anythin' to say 'bout it?" Michonne hadn't said a word on the subject since it'd first arisen weeks back; she'd said nothing, made no particular register in her expression when they appeared together, but Michonne keeps her opinions on most things close to the vest. Daryl scratches his chin with his thumb, then glances from her to the rearview mirror then back to the road.

Michonne stares, through the windshield ahead of her, up the road, biding her time. "It's got nothing to do with me."

Daryl glances at her again; it's been a little while since he's heard that from anyone. Even those in camp who're closer to coming around still seem to  _care;_  it is a thing most have a stance on. Daryl gestures, his hand at his chin, "Not sure the gr _ou_ p feels that way."

Michonne glances at him, "They'll get used it."

"Yeh?" he half snorts.

"You need to understand something."

"Y _e_ h?" he huffs. "Whut's that?"

"That girl—" Michonne starts, her voice rich and assured; Daryl looks over again "—she's not just Maggie's little sister." Daryl raises his eyebrow as an invitation for her to elaborate. "She's the whole  _group_ 's little sister," she says flatly. "You know that."

Daryl swallows, and tries to fight off a defensive glower. His grip tightens unconsciously on the steering wheel as his firm hands worry the already sweat-worn vinyl. "You think they'll get over it?"

Michonne turns her head slowly on him, and smiles, broadly. "For 'Daryl Dixon'?" she draws out with a honey grin. "They'll get over anything."

Daryl sneaks a sideways glance at her and smirks. "Shut up."

"You know it's true," she smiles, then uncharacteristically feigns a swoon, "' _Oh Daryl Dixon._ '"

Daryl looks at her: stoic Michonne, teasing him, saying that shit, it throws him way off. Daryl waves her off with a wry smile,  _"Man, shut up_."

Michonne keeps smiling, "It will work itself out." Daryl side glances at her again for confirmation, and she shrugs loftily. "I think it's cute."

"Girl," he shakes his head with incredulity, grimacing uncomfortably through the smile he's trying to ward off, "shut up. " Michonne's laugh is ebullient.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm so sorry to have left this story for so long! I got stuck during the summer, and had to put it away for work and school (which is exactly what I should be working on now, only I'm very badly procrastinating!).
> 
> LOTS of scenes, including certain exchanges in this one, have been written since July/August, but I was having loads of trouble piecing them together, and being certain of the forward path, etc. Anyway, I wanted to get back to it, and if I couldn't figure out the smoothest way, I might have found a bit of a cheat. Forgive me if it's a little rough, but if something didn't get posted to get this story's proverbial 'ball' rolling again, it was never going to happen at all. Hope you're all well, I always love hearing from you!

The road to their destination was long; their journey there was longer. They stopped several times to relieve themselves, to rotate drivers, and refuel. Five times they risked stopping to siphon gas, not wanting to dip into their own reserves if not necessary. Between their destination and their home at the prison there is a lot of road, and a lot of space in which things might go wrong. Detours, side roads, back tracking – they can't know what lies in wait, but they'll arm themselves with the fuel they'll undoubtedly inevitably need. Like Daryl'd said, sooner or later, they run.

Some vehicles left on the roads are there because their engines could power no further on fumes alone. Many though stopped for other reasons, their drivers never to start them again: swarmed by a pack maybe, in a crash, a clash with other survivors, or some unknowable emergency. Whatever the original reason a vehicle stopped, most tanks are empty now; everyone still alive is in search for gas. Even oil. Twice they got lucky with near half-full tanks. Michonne filled as high as she could with gasoline two empty gallon water bottles they found in a car's backseat, adding them to the cans they'd brought with them in the trunk.

Though they stopped for gas they never bothered with stopping at any of the towns, or any convenience stops linked in the old web of roadside commerce. Mini-marts, gas stations, even big box stores, such places are not worth their time. Going after what no doubt has been raided over and over does not merit the risk of clearing the spaces. Daryl, Michonne, Sasha, even Hank, they're effective, but there's only four of them, and even with the entirety of the prison group, any small thing can go wrong, and quickly, and lives are lost that way. They measure risk with potential pay-off. The whole purpose of risking this trip – putting so many miles between them and the prison and the ones who remained behind there – was to tap into resources that haven't been scavenged over thirty-fold already. Whether that turns out to be the reality of the place remains to be seen.

It's a gamble. There's no knowing what they'll find. The place could be as picked-over as every place else, it could be burned to the ground, it could be teaming with walkers, but they're giving it a go. No matter what they find out there – swarmed or clear – just being on the road this far out, this long, is a danger. Only four of them went so as not to compromise the group should something prohibit their return, but it makes facing the dangers they might encounter that much more of a threat. But they keep their heads cool and their nerves calm. These four are seasoned, and the payoff they're after, and whom they'll bring it back to, is worth it; as they travel, they do not do so in anxiety.

When they pull off the highway and take the long curvy road into the resort settlement, they see no indication of life – or of the dead – and they dare to let their expectations climb, but cautiously. They pass through streets, passing by town houses and condos, and smart looking upscale cabins, and then Michonne, the third street in, pulls the car over and parks. Four pairs of eyes look around, searching for what they're now trained to find. Scouring the horizons for signs of anything out of the new norm.

Spying nothing, one by one each opens their door and climbs out, stretching their legs and the sore muscles in their backs, all the while staying keenly aware of their surroundings. Daryl walks silently forward with his loaded bow, Michonne advances with stealth, her gleaming katana raised and at the ready, followed behind by Sasha and her riffle and Hank, carrying an aluminum bat, with a Berretta in his waistband. They walk. The space is quiet, and almost serene. The sky is clear, though in it wafts the faintest trace of smoke, so light it's more of a ghost of a smell. The scent of it is so faint it presents itself almost as a trick of the mind, or just a shifting in the seasons. Winter is coming after all, the cold always brings a crisp woodsy smokiness with it. They scan the skyline… Nothing. Daryl turns silently to them, exchanges a look with Michonne, and signals with a flick of his fingers and they move forward.

They turn a corner, and survey what they see, settling a silent plan for scavenging, making first for the building on their left. Daryl has to force the lock, a good sign the contents of the house will be untouched. Inside they find the place in relative order; it's clear it hasn't been ransacked by road transients. In the kitchen there is little food to find, but some: A bag of pasta, a jar of olives, packets of instant cocoa and a carton of orange Jell-O, all in places one wouldn't think to look for food. The pasta was above the refrigerator, way at the back, like it had fallen out of a basket at one point and never been retried. The Jell-O was stuffed in drawer with take-out menus and appliance manuals. In the back of a cabinet there's a space where the shelf doesn't quite meet the inner wall, and it was there the olives' narrow glass jar had gotten stuck. The cocoa was on the shelf above, pushed far back. Sasha had been on her knees on the counter to reach, and even to see them. They had known to expect this – vacation homes are rarely stocked full with food, but they're betting they'll find among the sparse pantries at least two or three that were left stocked close to the brim. That is what they're after.

They find batteries in the smoke detectors, but nowhere else. They pocket a few other items here and there, tinfoil, packing tape, an extension cord. Sasha grabs a bottle of bleach, and Hank some aerosol canisters – anything can be made into a weapon with some forethought. There are some things they don't find that they would have expected to, toilet paper for one, or any kind of medicine; even staples like salt, or matches. They scour further. They do not bother with bedding or clothing, there're plenty of houses much closer to the prison that can still provide household items. They do keep an eye out for Judith though, and any rarities they might come across they'll likely never find again. There are no weapons.

Their arms lightly loaded, the foursome exits the home and moves back into the street. Before they cross either to their car or the neighboring home, of a sudden a heavy metallic echo breaks the silence. A gun cocking. The group freezes.

"We'll take that," says a voice solid with authority, stiff with checked aggression.

Daryl, Michonne, Sasha, and Hank turn, their arms filled, but not with weapons. Daryl drops the sack he's carrying and in an instant has his Stryker raised and looking for a target. Michonne too drops her goods and raises her sword, knowing it isn't worth its weight against unseen artillery. Sasha, then Hank draw their weapons; all four look for their aggressor, look for their out, which they cannot find till they know what they're up against. They're feet stand on point, ready for action, their fingers ready on the draw.

"Turn around!" the voice commands. "Turn around now!"

They stop, they look up and around – everything's as it was; there's no sign as to where the voice is coming from. Daryl turns round twice, trying to place the source, his weapon loaded and raised.

"Hey! You hearin' us? Don't matter where we are, you need to be  _out of here_.  _Now!_ "

Daryl aims his bow in the direction he thinks is right, Michonne pivots, covering his back, the others move as well and quickly they're in formation, against what they don't know. "This place is claimed!" the voice shouts. "Get the hell out while we're letting you!"

Daryl's fingers lift fractionally from the trigger in an act to signal contrition without surrendering any shred of advantage he'd had by already being armed when the voice called them out. "We ain't looking for a fight!" he answers back, shifting a little truer to the direction of the voice. "We're scouting 's all! Ain't no ambush!" No response comes. "We'll walk away, and be gone." Daryl waits, his eyes shifting, Michonne's weight flexing in anticipation of an onslaught or escape. In the time that passes before a response comes it seems as though the hidden voices must be conferring. Daryl keeps his head about him –  _they can walk away from this_.

 


	22. Chapter 22

Daryl sits motionless, his head throbbing where it took the blow. The lashes about his wrists and legs pull tightly where they tether him in place. He is alone, separated from Michonne and the others. Waiting.

He woke up there, and since he's been conscious he's been alone. Now he waits for what comes next. There is no give in his bindings, no knife left at his belt, no nearby tool to avail himself of.

Nothing... He uses the time to scan his holding place. Sizing up the door, the windows, anything he might use as a weapon if he manages to get free, any spot in the space that'd give him the upper hand. He looks, he observes, he calculates.

Though his body aches from the beatings and the shackles, and his head is ringing, he remains alert, poised for action and the taking of an opportunity when one arises.

This will not be the end. He'll get free, as will the others, and they'll get out, back to the prison. Back to Rick and their family. Daryl bides his time, conserving his energy, lying in wait.

But when the door creaks open coming through it isn't one of his captors, but a young girl, maybe ten, maybe eleven. She is, he thinks, maybe just about the size of Sophia, as he manages to remember her. But size is really where the resemblance ends. This girl is all large dark saucer eyes and long raven locks. She appears to be solemn, and watchful, but she does not seem afraid. She steps in, and Daryl's eyes drop to his bindings, ashamed to be the criminal in this child's eyes.

"What—" He clears his throat so as not to sound so gruff, "What're ya doin' out here?"

The girl looks at him, up and down, then steps around him and crosses the space to a far corner, glancing at him more than once as she does. "My cat's in here." Her voice is so sweet, and a little precocious, and it drives in thoughts of home — of the prison and of his friends and family back there waiting for him. Of Molly and Mika and Luke. Little Ass Kicker and Carl. Of…

Bending over a cardboard box, she strokes the hidden animal, "She's going to have kittens."

Daryl's having trouble making sense of this—  _What is happening? Cats? Little girls?_  "How long I been in here?"

She shakes her head. "I'm not supposed to say."

"The others I was with? What happened to them?" He watches her, but she gives no reply, just pets her cat. Daryl's eyes narrow keenly, "You're not supposed t' be in here, are you?"

She looks up from the box, studies him, and shakes her head.

Daryl blinks, and nods to himself, he sees what this is, and he's not seeing an easy way out of it. "You should get outta here; your people ain't gonna like you being in here wi' me." Looking up from her cat to the bruised and cut stranger tethered to pipes, the girl studies him. He nods at her, with the slightest slant of a somber smile, "Go on." Her wide dark eyes take him in, then she rises and crosses to the door from where she came. But she pauses at the gate, and she looks back at him. His voice is gravelly when he speaks once more to her, "Name's Daryl." He clears his throat, and takes the one chance that's presented itself. "My name is Daryl Dixon. Grew up in Georgia. Had a mama and an old man. Had a big brother."

She doesn't blink, but she is listening.

"I've got family, waiting on me. Two days back at our camp." She opens the door, and just as she moves through he adds, "We're no danger to you." The door closes tightly behind her, and he hears the chains being rewrapped around the exterior handles, and he's alone again. Waiting. Thinking of all the people he left waiting for him.

 


	23. Chapter 23

Daryl waits. The hours have been long, and grueling. Men came in once to shovel a bowl of some gruesome something in his mouth in the span of three large spoonfuls. They squirted some water in his mouth, checked his bindings, ignored his questions and declarations, and were gone again. They neither beat him, not interrogated him. Instead they left him. Alone. Alone to second guess what he could have done differently, if this trip was worth the risk.

His mind keeps churning. If they're not questioning him, or beating him – or worse – why are they holding him? It occurs to him that though they may not be bothering with him, there is Michonne, and there is Sasha, and he does not know where they are, or what trouble their captors are taking with them. Daryl's stomach turns. He fights hard against his tethers, but there is no give. He cannot get loose. Hours pass.

* * *

Beth lies in the grass with Judith beside her on a blanket and Charlotte, Mika and Molly doing cartwheels and twirling in the late summer light. Industriously Beth practices knot after knot, building the skills she'd promised she would; half a dozen of them now, setting them as quickly as she can. Her fingers move agilely as Rick had instructed her they must if she is ever to be joining him on his route in the woods—

 _"It'll be quick, second nature,"_  he'd said.  _"You're eyes will be on the trails and on your surroundings, not on what you're hands are doing."_

She runs her hand through as trial again; the trap sets, but it wobbles and the twig framing snaps and collapses. "Shoot!"  _Was it the snare or had she pulled too hard?_  Could be either. Could be both—

 _"You've got to be precise,"_  Rick had said.  _"No good setting somthin' the catch'll just wriggle out of."_  Beth nods and sets about it again.

Breaking the quiet Judith giggles and claps as a dizzy Charlotte stumbles and happily collapses onto the blanket beside her. Pulled from her focus Beth looks up; the clapping is new, and so sweet. All three of the little girls join in. Beth laughs too, and her smile sticks as she spots Carl crossing to them from where he exited the prison. She's squinting at him as he approaches. "Hey."

"Hey," he nods.

"She clapped," Molly shares with him in enthusiasm. "Judith clapped!"

Moderately impressed, Carl's brow rises and his adolescent voice break a bit in his answer, "Really?"

Beth nods and the three little girls plop down on their knees before the baby and proceed to clap and to smile and encourage as they try to recreate the baby's first. "Watch," Mika invites him gleefully. "Come on Judith..." she encourages.

"Clap. See?" Charlotte and the other two watch happily as they demonstrate. "Clap. You can do it." And she does; the girls made it so appealing how could she not?

"Good job, Judith," Carl approves, benignly praising his sister. Then it's Beth he's looking at. "You got a second? I found something." Beth looks at the girls.

"We can watch Judith," Charlotte tells her.

"Come'on," Carl jerks his head toward the prison.

Beth follows Carl into the library curious as to what it is he's showing her. He goes to the shelves and pulls from one a small vinyl covered book of forest green and hands it to her, his eyes expectant as he watches her look it over. The thing is old, maybe a remnant from the sixties or the fifties, and the pages are slick and thin and heavy, like the pages of some bibles. She turns it over in her hands and reads the inlaid title.

" _'Scout's Guide to the Wilderness'_." She looks up, "They had this in the prison?"

Carl shakes his head with a scoff, "Nope. See? It doesn't have the right stamp. Probably would've encouraged them to run. 'S brought in on one of the runs."

Beth shrugs, "Cool," and offers it back to him.

Carl pushes it back to her, "'s for you. For learning. Has stuff about trapping. Thought you could use it; maybe it'll help."

Beth looks at him with the sliver of a smile, "You think I need  _help_?"

He smirks slightly, "Didn't mean it like that."

"Don't you want it?" she offers. "There's got to be—"

"Farming," he interrupts sanguinely, "isn't—" He shrugs amiably. "Keep it."

"Thank you," she accepts with a nod.

* * *

Time passes. Through the short windows lining the height of the shed walls, Daryl watches the sun set on his third night out of the prison. They'd driven through the first night, getting to this place. The second found him somewhat groggy from his head wound, drifting in and out, trying to keep watch though the darkness, staying alert as best he might, on the ready for action. But nothing came, and then the long day of inaction passed him, and now it's night again. They'll be expecting them to show up sometime late morning tomorrow.  _How long beyond that will it be until they start to worry? How long beyond that till they give them up for lost?_  Daryl watches the shadows shift, and he thinks of home.

 


	24. Chapter 24

The zip ties and cords on his ankles and wrists leave him no room to manuever, but he had been done the courtesy of his wrists first being bound with duck tape. It's uncomfortable as hell but it's keeping the plastic from cutting into his raw sweaty skin. His hands feel heavy and dead behind him, and his arms and shoulders ache from being fixed so long in strict position. Never would he have imagined stillness would bring him such acute awareness of his body, and its needs. Both his mind and his limbs feel to be in rampant decay from want of use. His spirit, too, sinks, and darkens.

Upon the opening of the door Daryl's heavy head lifts from where it'd dropped to his chest as he dozed limply. His head jerks and his eyes focus on the figure passing through. It's her again, the dark-haired girl. She closes the door behind her softly, and again she looks at him, and again she crosses the space to the box where her cat lies; Daryl's soft eyes follow her. "Had her kittens," he rasps. "Earlier this mornin'. Heard her mewing some, then the babies come. Don't know how many." Carefully the girl kneels and inspects the tiny newcomers. "There a lot?" he asks, trying to keep himself in the conversation. "I, uh," he tries, "think I counted four." No response comes from her. "She whelp any kittens before? Litters come larger the more the mama has." Daryl watches her, but with still no response coming he gives in and resigns himself, slumping back into himself.

"There're five."

His head rises, and Daryl's weary eyes meet hers. And they look at one another. In time Daryl blinks. "They all moving?" She looks down to check, then back up to him and nods. Daryl nods in turn. "Gotta keep an eye out fer that; sometimes a little one won't get 'nough to eat — gets pushed back by the others. Can't survive on it's own, small an' outside the group. But," he looks at her and a sliver of a reassuring smile cracks in the corner of his mouth, "five's not too many. Five babies c'n survive." She looks down at the kittens again, to be sure. "Hey," he says, provoking again her attention, "you remember my name?"

The look she gives him is so lengthy, he doesn't hold out on hope she'll answer. But after a moment she does, following a slow sober nod. "Daryl. Daryl Dixon. You have a brother."

The creases at Daryl's eyes deepen as he smiles at this unexpected advancement in their exchanges, "That's right," he nods. "And we didn't come here to make trouble. We 's looking for supplies. That's all. We didn't come here to hurt anyone," His eyes never leave hers. "We're not like that."

She holds his gaze a little longer, then returns to the kittens. He lets her do so, giving her some space, and holding his tongue for a bit. But he watches. In time he asks, "You know you're not s'posed to be in here, how come you don't move the cat?"

She looks at him, holding the smallest looking thing in her hand, so small it could be a mouse and not a cat, "They won't let me keep the kittens. Not all of them."

Daryl nods. "'s the way of the world."

* * *

"Hey." Carl joins Beth at the fence, taking up a fire poker to help with the culling.

"Hey," she greets him, returning the smile. Beth's been on duty for some time already. Her gloves and apron are freshly splattered with black goopy blood, and she's breathing somewhat heavily. She takes the opportunity of the interruption to wipe her brow with her forearm, and to let her arms relax.

Carl advances toward the fence and plunges the poker squarely into a fence hanger's rotting skull. He tugs back on it hard, creating a great viscus mess, and then in silence impales two more. Then he looks at her. "They're not back yet."

Beth turns back toward the fence and jams her tire iron into a gnashing biting horror. She retracts the weapon dispassionately. "No."

It's late afternoon; even with a detour they were meant to have been back by now. But it is not so late, she keeps in mind. There is no telling what they might have run into out there, what might be keeping them. There's no reason to worry yet. They may have found another group; they may be helping them, bringing them in. Maybe they found another site to forage. It's early enough yet that things may still very likely sort themselves out; it is likely they're on the road now, heading back, delayed, but not waylaid.

She watches Carl though, and he doesn't look las if he thinks the delay is due to road blocks, or diversions. "Michonne," he says, speaking her name. "Daryl. Sasha. Hank." Somehow, saying the names aloud is, a sort of haunting. Somehow it's unexpectedly a bad omen. Remaining motionless, Beth and Carl ignore the roar of growling and hissing on the other side of the fence. The walkers hardly register in their thoughts. "I saved Sasha," he reflects. "Brought them in from the tombs."

Beth nods. "I remember." She brushes a curl out of her eye. "They were all gone then too. Daryl, your dad."

"Gone after Glenn and Maggie."

"They all came back then," she says, warding something off.

Carl moves past her then and strikes, taking down another walker, particularly loud, exerting minimal effort in the dispatch. "Not Oscar," he recounts, once he's back on his heels.

Beth looks at him, watchfully, then shakes free the sentiment and turns back to the fence. It's not even a day they're late yet. It isn't time to worry.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's funny, I started writing this story during season 3, and continued working on it through season 4; when I took the break from it this fall I wasn't too worried about hurrying up and getting it posted because halfway through S4 they were already out of the prison, so the fic had already been made divergent. Now though, writing these relationships, it just seems soooo long ago. I mean, thinking back to when Carl had a crush on Beth? That was episode 1, season 3. It just seems so quaint now, to be writing a little story about the survivors living in the prison. But then, after the first block of season 5, I guess maybe quaint is what we need.
> 
> (I apologize for the short updates, but I can't resist.) I would really love to hear your thoughts on how this is all working. Thanks so much for reading! Please don't be a stranger :-)


	25. Chapter 25

The room is already black. He can't be sure what time it is, he's losing track. It could be the middle of the night, it could be quite a bitter earlier. The days are getting shorter, and he can't recall how long he's been sitting in the dark; he can no longer rely upon himself to judge. It's the fourth night they've been away— No, the fifth. A whole nother day had passed him, while he sat there motionless, in the shifting shadows of day and night. Time passes over him slowly, and he feels as though he's losing his grasp on it.

Once a day, maybe more, men, with different voices, and different faces, come in. They undo the heavy locks outside, they push open the door, and spoon more goop into his mouth, and a little bit of water. They don't question him, they almost wholly ignore him. They check his bonds, and then they leave him. There is no working out what they're after. If they don't talk to him they're not after information. At the start, sometime in his first day — at least the first day he was conscious, if he did in fact lose more than hours when they knocked him out — they had asked him about a map. They'd found a map with this place marked on it in their car, and they were using it as evidence this was more than a scouting trip that happened upon them, this was something that had been worked out and planned. They claimed there had been forethought, and thy pressed to know more.

Daryl had answered about the map, but they hadn't seemed satisfied, they haven't brought it up again. They just leave him there, to himself, tightly bound, and without chance of escape. But if they don't want information, what do they want? They're not getting anything from him, but if they're ignoring him, are they ignoring the others? Are the other three being equally ignored? For what possible purpose? Keeping prisoners is not worth the effort it takes to keep them, Daryl knows this. So then there has to be a purpose. There is a reason he's been separated from his group and kept alive to wither and rot, he just can't see what it is. Are the other's still waiting, like him, in the darkness? Or is he the last? Alone now, waiting for an unknown fate?

The door opens, the sound of it so loud and jarring now that he's been sunk into this isolated nothingness. He's already been force-fed the mush for the night, so either this is it, when they've broken him down enough to move on to the next step, or— He pulls his head up. And there she is, in night clothes, lit partially by the flashlight she carries with her. It isn't a very bright burning one, but still it takes his eyes some getting used to.

She steps in, but does not move near him. In all her visits, she's been careful to keep her distance. "I brought you a pillow," she speaks softly.

"Daryl shakes his head. "You can't do that Sweetheart; they'll know."

She looks at him from her doleful eyes, and accepts this must be true. She crosses the room toward the kittens, and settles down beside the box. "Have they been crying?"

Daryl sniffs, "Only a little." He's thinking of home, about Beth, and laying his head down upon her pillow; about the way she smells and how she feels in his hands in the dark. He's thinking about escape, but every minute under the bondage of the unforgiving ties makes it seem all the more far away, and all the less likely to happen.

She looks back at him with a quick and unfiltered smile, "They're nursing."

Daryl nods, the corner of his mouth looking vaguely friendly, "Tha's a good sign."

The girl kneels and pets the tiny brow of the small grey one. "Are they feeding you?" She turns toward Daryl. "Are they?"

Daryl lifts his head, he's tired, hungry, in pain, and losing hope he's going to get out of there.

"Yeh." There's no reason for answering that way, when he is hungry, very, but he does.

* * *

In the morning, before her shift serving breakfast, Beth ducks her head into Carl's cell. He's dressed, but he isn't up yet. "Hey." She smiles at him as she takes a step into his room.

Carl looks up. "Hey." He looks at her, "They back?"

Beth shakes her head. Carl watches as she takes a cautious step inside, looking to him for an invitation; his nod tells her to stop being stupid and just come in already. She smiles tightly and moves further in. "How ya doin'?"

Carl shrugs, then looks at her with meaning, "You?"

Beth doesn't want to answer that just now. It's still early. "I've been reading the book," she tells him. "It's good. Well," she smiles, rethinking that appraisal, "maybe ' _good'_ 's not the word, but, it's interesting."

"Yeah?"

"Mm,hm." She moves toward the stool, but does not sit. "There's this thing called an Apache foot trap; it's meant for deer and game like that. Could work."

Carl nods, listening, "Cool."

"Course, that's if walkers don't get caught first."

"Right," Carl minimally snorts.

"And—" she starts again, "there's funnel fish traps. Ever try one?"

"Uh,uh."

"I guess we don't know till we try, but it seems like it's simple, and we could really catch fish easily. It could be a huge game changer for us."

"If you wanna eat fish every day," he kids.

"It'll be safer than hunting," she says simply. "Might even keep our people from having to go out as much." There's a moment of acknowledged silence between them, but Beth pushes on, choosing to smile. "I brought you something." Carl looks, noticing for the first time the book in her hands is not the scouting one. His interest is piqued. "I read it," she says, "when I was your age." She smiles at herself with a roll of her eyes, it sounds queer to be saying that to someone so close to her own age. "Ninth grade English—"

"Hmph," Carl shakes his head. It's crazy to think he'd be in high school now.

"—Ms. Huth," she reflects. "It's amazing."

Carl nods at it, "What's it called?"

" _All Quiet on the Western Front._  I think you should read it."

Carl's head tilts as he inspects the cover at the angle at which she's holding it. "About a war?" Beth looks at him, and nods. "Which one?"

"First World War. See," now she does sit, "it's this German soldier, stationed on the frontlines in France, and it's his experiences with his comrades — before the war and during; but the thing about it is, it's not about being German. When you read it, they could be anyone. And, the thing is, they are. It's beautiful, and tragic, but he finds the universal humanity in a war that killed nearly an entire generation." Carl doesn't know the way to react to this. But he listens. "The thing is, he's so ready to do his part, but he keeps making these connections, these real connections with the enemies — the French, the Russians. But they keep going, for each other. And by the end— Well," Beth edits herself here; she hadn't meant to be so long winded. She does not speak of the utter desolation at the end, how too long being a soldier in the unfeeling machine of war killed him long before the final shot. But she does smile, her dimples surfacing in the effort. "Try it," she offers it to him, unsure if Rick would approve, if she's championing the wrong perspective. After all, there's no chance for a cease-fire in this world. Pacifism won't help with the walkers; the world didn't turn to this through hyperbole and fool-hardy valor. If they're soldiers now, the natural laws of the world shaped them as such. She's worried about Carl, but maybe it is not her place to try to reach a part of him that might slow his survival. But there is more to living than simply breathing, and putting one foot in front of the other. It's in the book she hands him, and there's an unintentional flutter of her eyelashes as she offers it to him. "We can talk about it after. If you want."

Carl rises slightly from his bunk and accepts it from her extended hand. "Thanks."

She nods, and rises. But before she leaves the cell she stops at the doorway, "Carl," she says somberly, "it's also about being lost."

But Carl hasn't taken her meaning as she meant it, "It's six days now," he says. "Six."

Beth nods. She lingers there in the doorway, "My dad says—" Carl listens. "Daddy says no one's going after them... It's too far. It'll just put more people at risk..."

"That's crap," he says, more animated. "We know where they were heading. If we're not going after them— _Michonne_  and _Daryl_? They're the strongest we've got. Sasha, Hank— If they're gone—"

Beth shakes her head. "They're coming back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not totally sure about the second part of this chapter, I pieced it together from an older piece, and I'm aware I might be trying to fit too much in, and mixing issues up :/ (I'm also torn about the no rescue thing; I suspect some readers will balk at it. The survivors have a pretty good 'no man left behind' track record, but I saw this as something they built into the plan for this run. I don't know, maybe I just wrote it for the drama? Sorry.) Thanks so much to all who leave regular, and one-time feedback, I sooo appreciate it!


	26. Chapter 26

Daryl is drifting. He's long ago lost sensation in his hands and feet. He is hungry, exhausted, his muscles are badly in want of use, and he is alone. Without any knowledge of Michonne and Sasha, or Hank. Every day that passes leaves him weaker, every day escape proves more unlikely, and he grows more discouraged. He feels his resolve fading. He's fighting mad, but his mind has stopped working out escape routes, and travels only to home. Inside the prison, his memories surround him, little glimpses of exchanges, people's faces, their voices. Rick. Carol. Hershel, Glenn, Maggie. Baby Judith, Carl. And her. Never out of his mind. He can see her, almost touch her, if he weren't so tightly tied down.

He remembers… back to when she was only just Beth, Beth Greene, the little sister of the group. Before she left the pick for him, back when there was just the slightest strand of a connection between them...

...

_It was late when he entered C block's common room, having been released by Tyreese from watch. Moving down the steps he'd walked past the blonde teenager at the table and moved to the larder for a bowl of whatever he could grab quickly and eat. Finding something that'd do, wordlessly he pulled up a metal stool and took a seat beside Beth at the table._

_Beth..._ He's right there in the room with her _..._

_She looks up from the log she's writing in to acknowledge him with a slight upturn of her lips, and then she returns to her writing. He eats in silence, shoveling a mixture of nuts and wild berries into his mouth with a spoon. He lets her work in silence, minding his own business._

_The minutes pass and she never looks up and never stops writing. His curiosity mildly aroused, Daryl takes the occasional muted glance in her direction. When still Beth does not look up he speaks, breaking the silence with his gruff rumbling bass, "What'ch'ya writin'? Beth's pen stops, and she looks up. "Journal?"_

_"_ _Mm,mm," she shakes her head." What's she's writing in is not her journal; it's a logbook she'd claimed from one of the guard perches._

_"_ _But, you keep one, don't ch'ya?" Daryl brushes at his face, "'ve seen you writing."_

_She hadn't thought that'd be a thing he would notice, amidst all the other details he picks up on. "Some," Beth nods. "But this isn't that."_

_"_ _Yeah?" he asks, shoving another less than satisfying spoonful in his mouth. "So what it is it?"_

_Beth looks at him, a little surprised Daryl Dixon cares. She hasn't talked to him like this, alone, and just, about, nothing in particular, very much. If anything, it's about supplies, or food, or work duty, or Judith. He doesn't ignore her, he's just, not exactly the first person in the prison a person would turn to to have a conversation._

_His calloused fingers sneak across the tabletop and tug on the log to pull it toward him. Instinctually Beth slaps her hand down upon it to stop him, but then finds that she's smiling in spite of herself. "Huh?" he presses._

_Beth's dimples appear as she opens her mouth to answer him, "I'm uh— Well," she taps her pen against the table surface, "I'm keeping a log for Judith."_

_Daryl looks at her, and then at the book, now with keener interest. "What's that mean?"_

_"_ _You know," she starts, "things about her, abut her life here; the things she does, the things that happen."_

_Daryl blinks thoughtfully, and his expression softens. "That's nice."_

_"_ _Well," Beth demurs, "my mother did it for me… I just thought—"_

_Daryl is quiet and his voice is gravelly as he speaks, "She's lucky to have you."_

_Beth shakes her head, "She doesn't 'have' me. I mean, of course she does; in the way that she has all of us. She has her father, and her brother. I just watch her is all."_

_Daryl shakes his head. "Naw. It's more than that. You do a lot more than that."_

_"_ _Rick's her father," she insists. "And I'm not the only one who watches her," she deflects. "My dad does, and Carol. Karen, some."_

_This time Daryl does tug the log away from her. "Any of_ 'em _doing_ this _?" he counters; she watches as Daryl flips through the pages absently. "_ Rick' _s 'er old man—"_

_"_ _He's doing a lot better now," she cuts him off in a bright and stalwart defense of Rick._

_Caught off guard Daryl looks at her earnestly, '"Yeh," he nods. "He is." Still, that's not the whole truth, and his face twitches, "But_ — _"_

 _"_ _So that's good," she cuts him off again, still brightly, seeming to him like she doesn't want to pegged with more responsibility, or rather credit, than she merits._ Beth's like that _, he reflects._ There in the background, quietly doing the inglorious tasks, the thankless, invisible work that keeps the prison running maybe just as much as anything else: the laundry, the cooking, the childcare, the intense, earnest believing that things will be all right. _Nobody's looking for thanks in the work they do within or without the wall, and they'd be less than deserving of it if they were;_ he _sure as hell doesn't look for credit for getting done what needs to be done, but sitting there beside her, holding back on saying she's every bit as much a parent to that baby girl as Rick is, he gets to thinking that maybe next to Rick, she's been saddled with the most unsought responsibility, and maybe next to Carl 's lost the most._

_But she never falters. After getting run off her family's farm, after the first couple days on the road, Beth was as steely as the rest of them. Small as she is Beth can be strong. She hadn't hesitated to volunteer to storm Woodbury to get back Maggie an' Glenn, and she's an effective fence clearer, and she does it all with a baby on her hips, a resolute angelic smile on her face, and with no one else around her age to talk to, or be with._

_"_ _There a lot to write?"_

He'd asked, just to keep her talking.

 _Beth looks up at him, a smile twinkling up at him. "_ You're _in it."_

_Daryl glances from her to the journal. "Bull."_

_"_ _Daryl," Beth reproaches, "she wouldn't have made it through her first day without you. More than that."_

Then it had been his turn to deflect.

_"Your sister was there too. Maggie did a helluva lot more that day than me."_

_Beth nods, "She's in there too. We all are."_

_Thumbing through the corners of the pages, Daryl looks at her, "How 'bout Lori?"_

_"_ _She'll have Carl and Rick for that." Beth lifts her pen again, "This is about_ her _."_

In the warm ring of light in that dark room, it was hard not to note how pretty this girl is.

_Sitting beside her he lets his eyes rest momentarily on her profile... lovely. But then he breaks the moment off, clears his throat, pushes back his stool with a metallic screech, and moves away from the table and from her, carrying his bowl back to the makeshift kitchenette. "You're a good kid, Greene."_

_Caught off guard herself, Beth looks up; her eyes follow after him, never having expected unwarranted praise of this nature from Daryl Dixon. Even if he did call her a kid in the process._

_"_ _Night," he grunts, heading through the gates to the cell row._

_"_ _Night, Mr. Dixon," she sasses. Daryl catches it, but he lets it slide. It's better that way._

_..._

Beth...

His chest aches.  _Beth. Home._  Daryl breathes in, he's trying to hold on.

* * *

Hershel, having risen in the night to relieve himself, spotted a dim light in the common room and walks now with his crutches – the prosthetic still resting beside his bunk – down the walkway and through the open gate. There is a light, but the room appears empty.

"Daddy."

The hushed voice above him greets him softly. Hershel lifts his head to the sound of his younger daughter's gentle voice. There above him on the second level sits Beth, bundled in her quilt, sitting with a candle and her journal. Hershel's eyes crease as he looks at her and his expression softens in patient love and empathy, "Hey there, Doodlebug." Beth's lips smile tightly and she pulls the quilt tighter around her. "What ch'you doin' up there?" The room is cold, and dark, and it is late. And he does not like to see her all alone. He watches as Beth only shrugs. "Bethy?" he prompts.

"I'm jist... sittin'."

Hershel's brow furrows. "Are you worrying? 'Bout what?"

"Mm,dunno," she murmurs.

"About the run?" he suggests. "About the people on it?" He asks less than he means, but he says enough to draw out a response if she's willing to answer. He waits, but Beth says nothing. "Elizabeth Anne," Hershel questions, "are you gonna make me walk all the way up there?"

Beth looks at him, her father, then picks herself up – candle, journal, and quilt – and moves softly down the stairs to her dad.

His soft eyes study her when she's standing before him, bundled, small, and somber. "You all right?"

"Mm,hm."

"You're not sleeping?"

"Daddy—"

"Honey," he leans forward against his crutches, touches her cheek. She doesn't say anything. "They haven't been late more than— There's no reason yet to conclude they're in danger."

To get him off his leg, Beth walks with him to the benches, and takes her place beside her father. "It's been three more days," he says, looking to give her some solace. "We all said it would be three. In the least. We might have miscalculated; we don't know what condition the road's in. They might have taken a detour."

Beth nods dutifully. "I'h know."

He studies her gently, "We all worry when our people are out there."

Beth nods, and smiles. "I know."

"Staying up all night won't help any to bring him home." Her father pats her small fair hand with his, and gives her a warm squeeze.

"I know." She makes no move to rise, or to return to bed.

Hershel blinks slowly. "May I sit with you?"

Beth nods. They remain there, father and daughter, seated at the metal tables. Momentarily Beth leans close and lays her head on her father's shoulder, and settles in. Hershel blinks softly as looks down fondly on his girl. In the quiet, the old man reaches out tucks her falling quilt around her slight shoulders, and pats her quietly, waiting up with her, into the late hours until she can face returning to her bed.

 


	27. Chapter 27

Beth beats the laundry. She scrubs hard and she beats it against the fencing then submerges it again and scrubs harder. _Plunge. Scrub. Wring. Beat. Repeat._  She's been doing it for over an hour.

"Beth—"

She stops. She looks up. Rick is standing there, several paces back, watching her. She looks at him. Standing there, breathing hard from her focused and sustained exertion, Beth looks at him. She knows there isn't good news. If they were back, she would know. And there's no way to know if there is bad news. Her large soft eyes wait, as they have been waiting, for  _something_. And he looks at her, watches her. His lips part as if to speak, but no sound emerges. He does not have the words to speak to her. Rick Grimes blinks, and idly hooks his thumb on his belt. He can't tell her they'll be back. He can't tell her everything will be all right. So he looks at her, and she at him. She knows he won't tell her anything. All there is is waiting. And keeping faith. All there is is finding something to hold onto through the waiting. And keeping her hands busy. And her mind.

They hold this connection for a little longer, both knowing what this doing nothing might be costing them. Then she nods, and turns back to the scrubbing. After a moment longer he continues down along the fence, through the yard, down to his crops. He'll work the field all day.

* * *

This time when the door creaks open, Daryl doesn't bother to lift his head to see who it is. He doesn't care. He's tired, and he's hungry, and he's lost all feeling in his arms — his fingers had gone dead long ago. Five days without walking, crouching once a day to take a piss, his pants miserably soiled; he feels his muscles going into atrophy. He wouldn't have thought the effects of captivity and immobility could be felt so immediately, but as it is his leg muscles feel hollow, and ache in a funny way from disuse. All day for days, and all night for five nights, all that's been on his mind is escape: Getting home, finding Michonne, and Sasha and Hank.  _Getting home._  To Rick. To Carol and Hershel and Carl and Ass Kicker. To the family. And her. Home to Beth. He knows they're starting to worry now. It's been twice as long now as they'd projected. More than likely more people had stayed up to watch last night than just those on duty. He thinks about his bed, and Beth. Doubtful she'd slept much since he'd left. His one comfort is her faith. When tested Beth holds on. He knows she won't despair, at least not this quickly. He hopes they won't send a search party after them—

His wretched stupor is disrupted with a kick at his bare foot. They'd taken his boots first thing – he'd come to without them; no doubt there was the assumption it would hinder his escape should he get loose. First his toes had gone numb, then his feet, though he's been stretching them and moving them in what capacity he is able to.

At the impact his head jerks up, though he doesn't need to. The girl doesn't kick him, and all the rest are proving to be the same. They're not bad, as far as captors go; paranoid, and not very good listeners, but Daryl can't exactly blame them, in as much as he might be compelled to do the same to protect his own. They haven't beaten him, since the initial takedown, but they've tied him up and left him. And he's had little to eat and no word of the others. And he's been left there to rot and soil.

He doesn't belong there. And he's determined he won't be, not for much longer. As weak as he's been reduced, he has not submitted. The waiting isn't surrender; he is looking still for an out or for a moment when their guard is down, or their security breached. He has been debased, but he has not been broken.

This time coming through the door it's the first man, the one who'd called them out in the street. With him again is the one Daryl's come to infer is his older brother. The one in front is the leader, at least between the two of them, but it isn't difficult to spot an older brother.

The point man steps forward and looks squarely at Daryl. The look is lengthy and fixed, searing almost, and then from a clasp on his belt he pulls a knife, and holds it directly before Daryl, right beneath Daryl's jaw line, far enough out so that if Daryl strains his eyes down in front of him and tucks in his chin he can see it there, threatening, and in wait.

"Recognize it?"

Daryl looks up through a foul glare. The blade being held just beyond his jugular is his own. Merle'd got it for him. Years back. He'll be damned if he's killed by his own knife. Daryl spits at their feet, but it isn't all that impressive, he's dehydrated as hell. Then there's a kick at his knee — not hard; not hard enough to really mess him up, not like how he'd treated Randall, but it didn't feel good.

"Hey asshole, answer the question." It isn't shouted at him, it's really just said, like someone's telling him to wake up.

Maybe he  _is_  asleep. Maybe this is all a vision, and he'll wake up with her beside him, small and sweet and true. Or maybe she's in the common room, or on the patio outside, already up and with the baby on one hip, waiting for him with a private smile.  _If only..._

But he hasn't been thrown off a horse, or hit by his own bolt — he isn't dreaming this; Merle isn't going to appear to get him out. And though Beth may indeed be waiting for him, it's unlikely he'll be getting back to her anytime soon.  
"If you're going to do somethin'," he growls, "go ahead and do it."

The men look at him, look at him like they've been waiting for him to give them the go ahead to do him in, but in the next second the knife —  _his_  knife — moves from just in front of him to back behind him and down. They're cutting his ties and it can only mean one of two things: They're taking him at his word at last and ending this, or—  _Ending this._

"We're letting you go." The lead man reaches under Daryl's left underarm and yanks him up.

The pain is shooting. His legs are nothing but jolts of tingling, numbing pain. He feels it in his head it's so widespread. Still bound at the ankles and at his wrists, Daryl struggles to keep his balance as he's pulled up onto his useless legs.  _It's a tactic, he guesses: hold an enemy till their too weak to fight— And then what? If they're really letting him go, what was the point?_ Though he's lightheaded he fights the dizziness and keeps his purpose about him. He looks hard into the eyes of his two jailors, " _Why_?"

The elder of the two looks at him, angry almost, as though it is Daryl's doing they've been holding him all this time. As he struggles to stand, Daryl is newly aware of his filth. His odor is strong, his pants are more than sullied, there's a sore on the back of his leg _—_

With a quick look in the direction of his brother, he takes his own knife and ducks and cuts the ties at Daryl's feet. Rising, he returns Daryl's glower and says pointedly, "That not what you want?"

"Where's my group?"

"They're here," the first man says. Daryl's brow remains furrowed as hell and the man fills in, "They're fine. Like you."

"Yeh," Daryl scoffs derisively, "' _fine_.'"

"You're  _alive_ ," the other needlessly points out.

"Yeah?" Daryl asks sharply. "Why is that?" His eyes are keen as he studies them scrupulously. "You hold us six days an' now 're jus' l _e_ tting us  _go_? Just like that?"

"Something in particular you're expecting?" the brother asks.

They're leading Daryl, still bound at his wrists, and still barefoot, through the grounds of their settlement. He does not know to where. Daryl jerks his shoulder and himself away from his captors and stands in place. "Talk," he barks.

"Don't think you're quite in the position to be making demands yet," the first man advises. But Daryl stands his ground, though the pins and needles of his wakening legs still pierce him; it's disorienting, like he forgot how to walk. None of this has made sense from the start.  _And if they're letting him go then why is he still tied? And if his group's 'fine' then where are they?_ Daryl's senses go on red alert and he starts scanning his surroundings, things aren't adding up...

"Mi-ch _o_ nne!" he shouts out. " _Michonne_!"

"What are you doing?" the point man inquires stoically. Then, with arched pointedness, he looks squarely at him, with meaning, "D _a_ ryl D _i_ xon."

Daryl stops, and he turns and looks at him. He hadn't given up his name. Not his full name. When they'd been taken in he's certain he only surrendered his first name. He's fairly certain also, the rest of the group would have followed his lead on that, and not given up anything more. Michonne for sure; course, Sasha and Hank aren't he and Michonne. And if they were targeted harder than he was (more than likely on the prospect they'd be easier to break), or Sasha and Michonne were, there's no telling what they might have given up. Not that there's any meaning left in last names any longer. Identity isn't a factor of concern. It's motive. It's location. It's numbers. It's resources. Last names mean nothing. But still, they had his. What else did they have? And how? The only one he'd given it to was—

Daryl's eyes wrinkle as he takes a hard look at the men holding him, "What is this?" He looks from one to the other, "What'd tha' little one tell you?"

The man rolls his tongue across his inner upper lip, "Nothing." Daryl's getting wild eyed.  _This world does not make sense_. "She didn't have to. We had our eyes on you the whole time."

Daryl's encountered a lot in this world, but grappling with this is beyond him. His eyes narrow in cold indignation, "You send a little  _girl_ in to do your work?"  _Never. Never would he send in Sophia, Mika, Lizzie, Charlotte, Molly, to do something like that. Never. Not even Carl._ His expression screws up into disgust and a new level of distrust.

"You were bound," the brother points out. "You were all bound. We were right there, all the time."

Daryl spits at their feet, a little more effectively this time.

The lead man glances at his feet, looks at Daryl coolly, and walks further on, past his brother, expecting Daryl to follow after. He enters what looks like it was once a small property management office, and he waits, for Daryl to shadow the doorway. The looks at him. He looks tired to Daryl; cleaner, and better fed and exercised, but maybe as tired as he is. He watches him sigh, and rub his eye. The humanity in him finally brimming over. "There's something about the way a body interacts with a child," the leader says evenly. "Reveals a lot. A hell of a lot," he says, taking the knife and finally cutting Daryl Dixon free. "More than torture, that's for sure."

"Don' know about that," Daryl says, eyeing him suspiciously as he rubs at his wrists and tears off the cut duck tape. "Prob'ly get more information wi'd the other."

"Maybe," the man concedes. "But that's not the kind of information we were after. We're not in the practice of tracking down other encampments. We protect what we have here, look after our own, and to do that," he looks at Daryl, "we've got to know who we're dealing with." He nods, "And now we do.

"How so?" Daryl keeps his eyes active, scanning the office, scanning the street, adjusting himself to the sensation of being erect again, putting the weight of his body on his legs, and still working on getting the circulation back in his extremities; he is not yet stable on his feet. If he's going to have to run, he's not sure he'll make it.

In the face of Daryl's fury, the man, rather sedately, proceeds with defending their approach. "You gave her your name, never asked for hers. You weren't trying to pull her in. You never asked her to release you, or tried to bribe her or scare her. You even told her not to talk to you. Twice."

"None of that's nothin'."

"Yeah? You should see what others try."

"Not a very solid litmus test," Daryl scowls. "Anybody can play nice with a kid." He looks at him, squarely, "That's gonna serve you wrong someday. A lot of sickos can play it right for an audience." He stops at that, leaning back against a wall, needing its support after being sedentary for so long. He looks at him. "So now you're, just letting us go?"

"That's right," the man nods.

"No catch?" The man shakes his head, and in turn Daryl does as well. "You got a funny way of trustin'."

The tired man, the one so desperate to protect his people he's enlisting children in his cause, looks at Daryl. "You ever heard of a wolf in sheep's clothing?" Daryl grunts. "Because that's what we're dealing with. We've got the walking dead, we got our families, we've got wolves, and we've got wolves in sheep's clothing. Everybody out there still living wants to take what you've got. A wolf who's dressed like a wolf? That's easy to spot. They travel in packs, big packs, raiding and marauding. We take them down, no questions. Not anymore. We don't cower. We don't yield; we don't capitulate. A wolf in sheep's clothing, is a different matter. They want you to trust them. They move in, they infiltrate, then they go fur the jugular. Gotta trust something, but you can't trust strangers. Not anymore."

Daryl considers this. He thinks back on the trust he an' Rick an' the group have bestowed and withheld in their time. Some was ill deserved, on both sides of the ledger. Some trust was earned after the fact, after it was given. Like with him. Some was earned slowly, like with Michonne. Merle earned it, at the end, when no one was there to give it. Others abandoned their claim to it, like Shane had done, and for others, as with the Governor, the trust they had put in him, though shaky and reticent at best, and which never should have been given, said something about them, as a group — that they were able to still take that leap. That something human's left of them still. Trusting a single word from the Governor had been wrong, not taking him out all the times they could have had been wrong, but trusting his people had not been. The Woodbury folks were working out, fitting in; trusting  _them_ was not a mistake. They'd killed before to protect the group — the men in Randall's group, Randall himself, after a fashion; and surely the time will come when they will have to do so again, but they have to trust someone, other than themselves...  _Don't they?_  People can't make it on their own. The council had started talking, started discussing brining people in. Sometime after the fact, weeks — more than that maybe — Rick had come around to recounting the story of the hitchhiker. And though Daryl may have done the same thing (he doesn't know), it got him thinking:  _What outweighs the risk of trusting?_

"M'be," he nods. Daryl looks at him, "What happens to the ones who don't pass the test?"

The other man shifts his weight uncomfortably. "You know what happens."

Daryl looks at him; this man doesn't look like a murderer. He looks like a father. He looks like a mid-level middle class business man. "Gotta be some grey area," he posits. "Some middle of the road types?" Daryl thinks of his brother. He thinks of himself at the start of all this. Hadn't he had it planned to rob the camp? Would he 've deserved to be killed for it? He isn't sure. Supplies are life. Without them, there's not much chance. There may not be such a thing as petty theft anymore...

"Mr. Dixon, we no longer live in a time of nuance. Not when you have people to watch over. 'Alive' or 'Dead'. 'Good' or 'Bad'. 'Cautious' or 'Sorry'." He looks at Daryl. "Am I wrong?" Daryl gives no answer. All those days, sitting in filth, tied up in misery, he'd never thought he was really this close to death. Dispassionate, offensive-tack execution; all hanging on how he treated a child. "It's how we treat the weakest," the man said, "that shows who we are..." He looks at Daryl, speaking a little more brusquely now, "You passed the test. You all did. We're getting your group now. Here," he extracts Daryl's boots and dumps them at his feet.

Daryl looks at them, his feet seem so far away. He's dizzy, feeling the effects of the hunger, and dehydration. "Bother you for some water?"

"You'll find some waiting for you in your car."

Daryl nods, and steps into his boots, short tying them for the time. Outside, through the open door he catches a glimpse of Michonne, and lets out a sharp signal whistle. She stops, and he strides out to her. She's already released and in her shoes, and he approaches her, nodding at her with a big dumb grin and wraps her up in a large hug. "Good tuh see ya," he speaks into her ear.

"You too," she nods.

His eyes drop, and he studies her. "Ya all right?" Daryl ducks forward and asks in her ear. Her cheeks are hollow, there are bags under her eyes, she's sweat stained and dirty like him, but she looks all right. Michonne nods subtly and Daryl backs off and they both scan the street for sights of the remaining two of their party.

"They'll be waiting by your vehicle." Daryl looks at the leader then nods at Michonne to start walking. "Now, hold up," the man dictates. "You're no longer tied up—" Daryl scowls – that's not exactly what he would call it "—because we believe you now you didn't come here to pillage, or worse." He pauses a moment, "But we've got things to talk over."

Michonne looks at him coolly, "What's that?"

"Retribution."

"Won't happen." It's Daryl who grunts it.

The man looks from Daryl to Michonne, "How do we know?"

"You let us go, just to distrust us?" Daryl snarls.

"We need an assurance. From you, speaking for that group you've got waiting for you. I already said, we're not in the practice of taking risks."

Michonne's steely eyes flash to Daryl.  _When will this ordeal end? How will it?_  "We took a risk coming all the way out here," she says.

"We ain't comin' again," Daryl adds. The man looks from Daryl to Michonne, measuring them, sizing them up, as though he hadn't spent the last days and nights doing just that. "We ain't killers," Daryl says. "Not for the hell of it anyways."

"I'm Joseph," the man says, looking them both deep in the eyes. "Forget this place. Don't come back. We've got nothing for you."

It's Daryl's turn to measure him, and the creases in his face deepen as he does. "Takin', people in, c'n make you stronger."

Joseph smiles dispassionately, "You're not looking to be taken in."

Daryl's head shakes simply. "Nope. But someone out there is."

"We've done that."

Daryl's eyes stay right on him, and Michonne looks on as Daryl thinks whatever it is he's thinking. Finally he says, "You come across a guy with an eye patch, a guy who talks pretty – you don't hesitate. Kill 'im on sight. No risk assessment, shoot to kill."

The man looks at Michonne and Daryl, notes their earnestness, and nods gravely. His group's not the only group with a dark past. Then Daryl turns and he and Michonne walk through the settlement to find Sasha and Hank, get to their car, and make their way back. Home. And fast.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay... (breath)... let me have it: Did I pull this off, or was it a lot of build for an anti-climatic overly architected story plot? In this story (and in FAITH) I was interested in exploring how different types of people - non sociopaths - orchestrate and manage their survival in this world. (Also wanted to build off the fear and suspicion so present in this world.) Did any of it work? I know this whole section was a big left turn from the start of this story, so I've been pretty nervous about it. I so appreciate all the readers who are coming back, and especially all those who have reached out! (Yikes, I'm a little afraid...) xx


	28. Chapter 28

Driving at full speed Michonne gets them away from the resort town, away from the lake and back on the highway. Both hands on the wheel she's steady and composed as she drives; her eyes remain fixed straight ahead of her on the road. Then, after driving for more than an hour in silence she pulls over on the shoulder. Without a word she swings open the car door and climbs out, near stumbling as she walks, leaving the three passengers behind to watch.

Looking on, Daryl shifts in his seat, looks behind him into the backseat, then drops his thumb from between his teeth, pulls the latch on his own door, and steps out of the car after her. Daryl approaches, keeping his distance, standing about a yard away from her, following her steely gaze off down the highway. Michonne stands there motionless, her shoulders rising up and down as she takes great, heaving breaths.

In silence he hitches his crossbow over his shoulder. The air around them is thick and heavy and it's alive with insects; minute wings swarm in their eyes. Stoically he and she blink, and breathe, but make no other movement.

"Ya al'right?" Daryl's gravelly words break the silence.

It takes her some time to summon it in her to answer. But slowly, stoically, Michonne nods. "Mm,hm."

Daryl bites at his lower lip. There's nothing to say. They got out. Resources are scarce near home. Game is running low. They're having to go further and further out to hunt for supplies, the roads and woods are teaming with walkers, and it seems the world's been taken over by marauding sociopaths, and even the family types are taking hostages and setting executions. Shit keeps hitting them, losses keep adding up, and the brevity of recovery time between is taking its toll. They're heading home now, but they'll be out on the road again. They'll have to be. And the prison is still a target. But today, at least, they got out.

He shuffles his feet in the dirt; he hasn't gotten over how good it feels to be standing, upright, and in the open air. "Would've killed us," he reflects, "if we hadn't passed their test."

Michonne makes one slow and heavy nod; she understands the stakes.

Daryl glances at her from the corner of his eyes, she's not going to speak. There's not much to say. Words won't change fuck-all. They stand there a while longer, regaining their balance, catching their breath. "Better get goin'," he grunts. "Still got a lot'a road till home."

She turns slightly toward him. "Got people waitin' on you," she says. And he watches as the slightest shape of a smile shades her expression.

"You too," he says with a soft blink and an adjustment of the weapon slung back across his shoulder. "We all do." And he jerks his head, "C'mon. Burnin' the light."

* * *

Beth stands back in the night, watching him arrive. It was Tyreese who'd spotted the headlights racing toward the gates. He'd sounded the alert and now all the prison's up, gathered in the yard with lanterns and flashlights, to witness their awaited return and to welcome them back. Beth lingers quietly, watching him step out of the car, seeing him greeted by Rick in a fierce hug, and similarly so by so many others. She would run to him, but it is enough to see him safely returned, and so she hangs back, and does not rush him.

She stands there, silently taking in every movement, every detail in the dancing light. Amidst the clamor surrounding him, his eyes are on her, as is his crooked smile, tinged though, with something a little more melancholy. As she's not coming forward, toward her he moves. He would just stand there and take in that beloved face, but he can't put off taking her into his arms. His lips press firmly against her soft hair and then he lifts her from the ground, holding her tightly, just as tightly as she now holds him. Faces bury into one another's necks and muffled laughs meld with stifled long-deferred tears, so overwhelming is their relief.

Next he's in Rick's arms again, then Hershel's and Carol's. Glenn pats his back proudly and Maggie kisses his cheek and then Carl's in his arms. The other three are greeted just as warmly — Carl's glued to Michonne's side, Tyreese won't stop fussing over Sasha, and Hank shakes hands with all those he's befriended. When Daryl's released from everyone else's embraces, he returns to Beth, looks her in the eye, then wordlessly hooks his arm round her neck, tucks her in, and walks with her into their home.

**…**

There was a family meal together, a feast, as best they could manage, after which Daryl and the other three made for the showers. Now, fed and washed and in freshly laundered clothes, Daryl's retreated to Beth's bunk with her — the blue curtain in her doorway pulled closed to the world — too weary to be upright or among the others any longer. It's been a long night, a long week. So long since he sat quietly with her. It seems so much longer than a week since he sat right here with her, tying his laces and saying goodbye. He doesn't regret going. It's his job to go; they all have jobs. And soon enough he'll be going out again. There's no changing that. But right now, he sits beside her on her bed, feeling her smile at him, watching him as he eats a second helping of soup and potatoes off the tray she'd brought for him.

"I knew you'd come back," she tells him.

Daryl swallows another spoonful and looks at her, his quiet expression studying her young face, reading her as if she were one of the books she keeps piled up on her shelf. "Yeah?"

Beth sits there, and feels the length of her arm brushing against him, he's warm. "I did."

 _Beth._   _So steady._  He looks at her, as he swallows his last heap full, "Got you som'in'."

Through her bleary exhausted eyes Beth looks up at him and sniffs. "Wh _u_ t?" The run had been a draw; they hadn't come back with anything more than their lives. There's nothing he could have gotten her.

With his thumb he brushes the arc of her cheekbone, and repeats himself, "I got you something."

Beth grapples to make sense of what he's saying; he's _back,_  that's all she needs from him. Five days he'd been held captive, another two and a half he was gone for travel — gone seven days, four more than had been projected. She'd felt her faith flickering in that time, and now he's back, and he's all right. All four of them are.  _That_  is the gift.

"You don' want it," he shrugs, using his ambivalence to bait her. "Fine."

Beth shakes her head, knowing he's baiting her. "No," she smiles softly, "I didn't say that."

Daryl glances at her, and in silence his lips press together and he reaches behind him into the folds of his carefully settled bag and out by the scruff of its neck pulls out a small furry thing. Beth just looks at first, not seeing it for what it is; it's not uncommon for such things to be pulled from Daryl Dixon's bag. But a squirrel's not usually so small, or that shade of grey, and then— It moves. There's a momentary flash of the smallest glowing green eyes, and a little tiny squirm, the batting of a baby paw, and the tiniest, faintest mew.

Daryl watches as her river-blue eyes go wide. She can't believe it, and that look, that little expression of delighted wonder, that moment of reprieve and forgetting, makes some of the pain of this week worth it.

"That's not—" she starts. "You..." her eyes lift from it to him, "brought a kitten?"

"Mm,hm."

Fondly he watches her as Beth looks closer at the bundle of fluff curled easily in the palm of his one large hand. "Daryl—" she breathes. Daryl scoops his hand beneath the thing and it mews weakly as it shifts its insignificant weight. "You brought back a kitten." She almost laughs.

His eyes drop to the animal and he tucks the squirming thing in a little closer to the crook of his arm, "What's it look like?" He's glad to have this distraction. She probably wouldn't have pressed it, but he doesn't want to answer any questions. He doesn't want her to look at him like he's a victim. He just wants to sit there with her, and watch her smile. That, and then lie with her through the night, tucking her in close to him just as he did the first night they spent together.

The dampened twinkle in her eye reignites as she bites down on her smile and reaches out to pet the tiny thing. Watching her, Daryl shifts backwards from his waist, pulling the kitten away from her as he strokes its tiny forehead with his calloused index finger, but then his smile cracks and he hands the cat over. Beth scoops up the kitten, nuzzling the baby – so new it's yet unrecognizable as a cat – to her face. Her eyes though, stay on him. At long last on him. Forever on him. "Thank you."

"Mm,hm," and Daryl leans in, and holds the back of her head, closer to him, and he kisses her temple.

The fragile breathing thing of fluff and bird bones purrs, just barely audibly. It's more of a silent vibration, and the feel of it melts Beth's heart. She looks from him to her pet, still in disbelief such things still exist in this world. "How did you find it? How has it survived?"

In thoughtful meditation Daryl runs his rough thumb over her braid, and tells her with his gruff voice, "Was a gift."

Her eyes lift to his, and she looks worried for the first time since she was assured all the damaged he'd sustained in his absence was superficial— "What will we feed it? It's too small; too small to survive."

"We still got Ass Kicker's formula. She don't use it no more, right? Fed it some broth we had a couple times on the way back." He looks at her, and ventures to touch her face, "It'll make it."

Beth turns her face into his touch and kisses his palm, and then she rises, and with one hand moves the tray from her bed, pours the excess of his broth into a small shallow dish, uses her sweaters to create a nest for the kitten, and sets him down gently to eat and to fall asleep.

And she returns to her bunk. To him. And suddenly, with the welcomings, and the eating, and the showering, and the medical attention and recounting of events, and the presenting of his gift all out of the way, it's like he's really just come home; like since they left the Shepherds' encampment and raced down the highway at full speed all the way until they were outside their own gate watching Tyreese pull it open, he's been riding this wave of adrenalin that's been pushing him forward, and only now has he stopped.  _Now_  he can breathe. Only now, finally still, finally truly quiet, does it feel like he's back. And he exhales. Daryl's shoulders drop and his head sags. He breathes. And they sit there beside one another as the light from her lantern flickers. Beth feels the heaviness of his weight, the rise and fall of his chest; she is so grateful to have him there.  _Home. Safe_. They sit very still, breathing in unison together. In the dim quiet Beth's hand finds his, and her fingers curl in and intertwine with his. His hand is so warm, Daryl is always so warm. They speak no words.

Daryl's head drops to hers. In silence he lingers there against her, nuzzling her gently. And she does the same in return, hand in hand, their heads tenderly snuggling against each other. They breathe each other in, and take comfort in their reunion. Their lips hover so closely, just breaths from each other, but they linger there, in suspended anticipation, finding pleasure in the other's proximity. Closeness, is what they had been waiting for, yearning for, dreaming of. Everything more will come in time.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me! I had no idea how long this story was going to be when I started out on it, but I think it's winding down now, maybe four installments more? (An estimate just based on what I have loosely planned and written.) I've read this chapter too many times by this point to even see if it makes sense anymore, so I hope it works. When I began this story I had a series of snippets of scenes I wrote, but at the time they were not strung together in any contextual chronology, and I've had to rework them to fit in or space them out as needed; part of this is one of those early pieces. Happy New Year to all of you & I look forward to any feedback you have as I'm feeling a little stumbly in this story.

His hand reaches for her in his sleep and grips tightly to Beth's hand before his eyes ever open, even before the gasping breath of consciousness startles him from rest. Daryl wakes, and it takes him some time to really know where he is. Waking up with thoughts of Beth Greene in his arms isn't new, he dreamt it each night he was away, but this day he's home. This morning it isn't him thinking he can see her, imagining he can touch her, he can actually smell her and hear her breathing; her body warms his. Beneath his head is her pillow, and her cell mattress, and surrounding him is her comforter and blankets, and the longer his eyes remain open he realizes this isn't a dream, he's back. He made it home, all four of them did, and he's back with her. This time.

Beth stirs in his arms and he lets the alarmed heaving in his chest subside as he waits for her to wake and to turn on her side to face him. When she does those two blue eyes that meet his are brighter than what he'd seen in his mind's eye, and then there's the smile, and the soft touch of her lips against his. "Hi."

"Mornin'," he grunts, then clears his throat and makes something close to a smile for her. His body's still aching and sore, he feels heavy in her bed though his limbs still feel strangely light and empty from under use. His head is throbbing some, no doubt he's still dehydrated, but it's a relief to find himself in the condition he is.

Beth lifts herself on her elbow and scans him in the dim morning light. His skin looks loose on him, and the dark circles and skin discoloration have not faded. Her brow furrows, betraying her lingering anxiety for him, and he keeps that image of her in his mind. "Are you thirsty?" He shakes his head. "You are." And Beth pushes herself up and over him and she crosses to the nest she'd built and lifts out the tiny kitten, then pushes through her gate curtain and treads barefoot into the common room kitchenette.

The room is empty, it's still early. With one free hand, a skill she's mastered in all her time caring for Judtih, Beth fixes a shallow dish of water and powdered formula for the kitten, and settles it down to drink. Then she grabs two bottles of water and two bowls, and scoops into each of them a serving of leftover rice from the night before, adding several strips of smoked meat and handfuls of dandelion greens to each. Beth picks up the waters, the bowls, two spoons, the kitten and its dish, and returns to the cell block, climbing the stairs the second level. Beth passes by the closed curtains of several cells till she reaches Michonne's. The prison's still asleep, all but for those on watch and the few who have early kitchen duty outside; most are still asleep, or at least in bed, and the soft sounds of breathing and muffled snoring echo through the concrete walls. Beth knocks lightly on the metal gate frame, then pushes back the knotted curtain and steps quietly inside. Michonne's asleep, tangled in the sheets, and Beth leaves for her the water and a bowl of food, leaving it covered with a book to keep it safe from any pests crawling the floors of the prison. Cradling the kitten and rebalancing the remaining items she's carrying, Beth descends the stairs and returns to her own room, to Daryl, and closes shut the curtain behind her.

"You disappeared."

"I brought you some food," Beth hands him the water, and sets the bowl beside him on the bed, "and brought some to Michonne."

"Not the others?"

"Sasha's on D. Hank's on…"

"G."

"Right." She can see to them later, but more than likely there are already others who have taken on their care, and just then she was anxious to return to Daryl.

"Cutthroat."

"Just drink." Beth climbs onto the bunk beside him, still cradling the animal, and sets it upon her lap with the dish of instant formula. Daryl sits himself up, cracks a smile in her direction, and drinks thirstily. When the water's half drunk he screws the cap back on and eyes the kitten as it tries to lap up the milk.

"Don't think it's gettin' much."

Beth looks down in concern, "No?"

"It's small. Tweren't meant to be away from it's ma till weeks from now. Drinkin' like that 's not a skill they got this young."

"But—" Beth looks, "she's going to make it. Right?" Beth looks at the kitten, then lifts the dish from her lap and passes the little fuzzy bundle to Daryl; she rises from the bed, and crosses to her shelves, digging through her baskets until she returns with an old baby bottle of Judith's. Beth unscrews the top and carefully pours in the opaque liquid and returns with the bottle to the bed and the kitten. "Think this'll work?" Beth takes the baby and positions the bottle to the tiny mouth. The thing is too small, and too weak to suckle the rubber nipple itself, but she squeezes it just enough to squirt small shots of the milk into the open little mouth. The small pink spiky tongue laps up the milk eagerly.

The lightness of the kitten and it's tiny birdlike frame strikes her so deeply all at once she laughs and smiles, last night she'd nearly teared. "Oh!" It is a soft grey, with distinct black striping already visible all across it's small body, and Beth watches as the kitten sniffs her hands, laps the milk, and snuggles itself into her.

Daryl observes, pleased with himself and pleased with the image before him. "Thinkin'," he reaches out with his index finger and strokes the small creature's nose, "m'by should call 'er 'Convict.'"

Beth ducks her head to see the cat better; it's eyes are a piercing yellow-green, and its whiskers are unusually long; she half-giggles from contented delight. "Perfect." Again the thing lets out the smallest other worldly mew. "Eat," she directs him. "If she can, you can."

Daryl bites off a chunk of dried squirrel, and watches her with her pet. Moments pass and his expression settles as his eyelids blink softly; he chews thoughtfully and looks on, something's on his mind... "Beth," he says to her in time, but then stops.

When he says nothing more she looks up from the nursing animal and studies him. His face is unexpectedly crossed, his countenance concentrated. He isn't angry – she knows what that looks like on Daryl Dixon – but he's something. There's something very soft about the way he's looking at her, but dark, and clouded. "What?" She blinks as she looks at him silent and unmoved. She starts to worry again there is more to his story of captivity than the four had revealed to Rick and the others last night. "D _a_ r _y_ l, wh _a_ t?"

What he's trying to say, what's on his mind, isn't about the last couple of days, not exactly. He sees her waiting for him to speak; this is hard. He'd started this talk but he doesn't know how to proceed.  _May be it's pointless to say it._  "I love you."

Beth nods, "I know."

The saying of the words was so easy for him, it was the letting himself feel them that had been hard, now the  _saying_  is not even to be acknowledged. Daryl though isn't able to let it rest with that exchange, something's eating at him. With the kitten snuggling into her arms she waits, seeing his expression shadow before her. "How long do'ya think we got?" Beth flinches, she knows what he means, he's talking about the two of them, as they are together. He'd stood his ground with her while the others in the group took their time coming around on them, he didn't back away or start to shut down, but he h _a_ d tried to discourage her once before, when he was scared, and though it hadn't occurred to her until now, after being held, he might— "I've got you n _o_ w," he says, "but—"

He's haunted, that's what's plaguing him. He is haunted by the past, by all that's out there lying in wait, but as she looks at him, she realizes, it is not the past so much that is dogging him; it's the future, the endless macabre arsenal of possibility.

"H _ey_ ," she demands his attention. "What are you thinking? What're you getting at?" Daryl looks at her pointedly, and without a clear answer, or path, he exhales, then rises and paces. "D _a_ r _y_ l," she reaches out, "what are you sayin'?" She watches him, wordless, shake his head. He'd waited a long time to get back to her, even longer to find her at all — his whole life, but there's something instinctual and self-preserving in him telling him to back away. Beth's head shakes solemnly at him and her eyes do not release him from her gaze. Her soft fair brow furrows in consternation. "When did y _ou_  start expectin' the worst?" Daryl doesn't answer her and Beth puts down the bottle, shifts the cat to a different position, and reminds him who he is. "Back on the f _a_ rm, when the others gave up you fought to find Carol's little girl. You went out every day; came back injured." She stands up, "You didn't assassinate the Governor. You went after Michonne to save her; you never gave up on your brother.  _Hope,_ Daryl; you have it. I've seen it. You knew Judith would live. You've never been afraid when we all were. How are you now—?" She doesn't know how to complete this question, she doesn't know exactly what he's working towards, and yet she senses he's pulling away from her, just now that she's gotten him back.

"You don't know what's out there Beth."

"I've been out there. On the road. With you. I know."

"No," he rejoins, "you don't know. You haven't got a clue. You weren't in Atlanta. You weren't at that old people's home after it got raided, or at the quarry. You didn't hear none of Randall's stories – what his group's doin' to folk, to girls like you, 'n people like your da'. You didn't see what Woodbury was like, or see the Governor close up – what he did to M _a_ ggie, or seen what he done to Andrea. To all his own people. You think you know because you were run off the farm, because we spent a winter scavenging and fighting walkers? But when the Governor came you were out in the woods – like you should'a been—" he doesn't want her thinking he thinks she should be doing more, being a soldier; that's not her job, not yet anyway "—but you didn't see."

"I saw enough."

"Beth," he appeals wearily, "far 's you know the walkers are the threat. Girl, we know how to handle walkers. It's the  _people_. It's the living you need to fear."

"Daryl I'm not stupid. Don't you think I get it? There are bad people. The Governor was a bad person—"

" _IS_  —"

"There were always bad people," she says a bit softer, trying to walk back whatever this has become. "Before."

"Only now those folks're out there in the open killin' anybody in their way. They're runnin' the show."

"You don't really think that."

"Oh n _o_? What'a 'bout the last five days? And that turned out to be the 'good' guys. And the Governor's still o _u_ t there. And likely worse."

"We're al _i_ ve," she impresses. "You made it back. We didn't lose the prison; we w _o_ n, and we're h _e_ re. And you all didn't vote to kill Randall; not in the end. And you brought back folks from Woodbury. And others. The bad aren't runnin' things."

"Beth, you ain't seen it, the coldness, the hatred in their eyes… It's like that now. It's worse than ugly."

 _How did they come to this conversation? How did the outside world so effectively infiltrate her bedroom, which had just so recently been so tender, so content and gentle? Why is she feeling compelled to prove her grit to him?_  "I… I saw what Carl did."

Daryl winces. "Carl was protecting you. Your dad; Asskicker."

This is the first they've really talked about this, about what Carl did; she is not sure it was protection, not wholly. "You don't think it was wr _o_ ng?"

"Jesus, Beth. I don't know. ' _Wrong_ '?" It was wrong to turn over Michonne but would it have been wrong to leave us all vulnerable, turkey's for the shootin'? ' _Wrong'_? The  _world's_ wrong. I want tuh see the group, you safe. I want to keep you  _you_. What wouldn't I do to see that done? Would those things be wrong? I'm trying to be the good guy, but there ain't no good, anymore; there's just survivin'. Surviving at someone else's expense. Even our own."

"No," her head shakes slowly again. Her expression is grave, and her voice is grounded. "It doesn't have to be like that. That's _him,_ that's the Governor; it's  _them,_  out there. We don't have to think like that. Zero sum? That isn't us." She swallows. "I know that isn't you."

"When it isn't, people get killed.  _Our_  people." He steadies himself for a second, resting his hand against the wall, he's not at a hundred percent yet. He regroups. "Stayin' alive's got a price, it's gonna cost us. More runs 'll be made. More accidents. More run-ins with others. Some of us 're gonna die, Beth, keeping this place going. And tha's not g _oo_ d, but it ain't 'wrong', it's jus' how things are. People goin' outside the fences might never come back. That's not goin' away.'"

Beth blinks, this conversation's starting to make sense. " _Daryl_ …" she breathes softly. Beth wants to reach out and touch his hand, only she knows he'll recoil, so she makes do with the kitten.

"I kept thinking about you," he blinks, "about comin' home tuh you."

Beth swallows. "You did." She knows there's more to what he's saying than that.

"An'," he turns away, "I thought about you, if I didn't come b _a_ ck, if we didn't make it out." She'd guessed this was it, he's afraid of hurting her. She watches him pace, there's a clenching in his fist. He isn't trying to back out, she can see that now, he's trying to reconcile how scared he was, or how uneasy he is with their ultimate lack of control. From the middle of a thought he looks at her... "And you're telling me you think I lost my hope?" He turns and paces further... "I don't wanna be the guy leavin' the stranger stripped and robbed on the side of the road 'cuz I'm too afraid to turn my back on him. Too afraid to trust." At this point Beth isn't able to follow where his mind is. "That fear is  _you_. Beth. It's the group — Rick, Carol, your dad, Carl, but it's  _you."_

"Daryl," she says, and it would come out so somber if it wasn't for the little baby of grey fuzz climbing up her chest from her arms, nuzzling itself into her neck, "the world ended; people  _are_  going to get killed." She pulls the kitten down out of her face. "There still has to be living." Daryl stops. He looks at her, at the infant cat so anxious for love, and he knows she's right. He couldn't walk away now if he tried. He can't. This home they've made, this family, her, it's keeping him alive as much as his bow and their guns and the prison walls are. "There isn't more time," she says. "You see that, don't you? There isn't more time. This is the time we have."

He looks at her in all seriousness, his eyes and expression in earnest, but the traces of a smile bend warmly at the corners of his mouth. He nods, and his voice is gruff and raspy, "I'know."

Beth's wide blue eyes meet his, communicating to him she can equal his austerity, but then she smiles boldly, daring him not to smile back. "You love me," she tells him.

"You have no idea."


	30. Chapter 30

Walking from his bunk to the yard, Daryl's stopped, and stands quietly outside Rick's cell, watching Judith as she settles down for a nap. So lost is he in her little yawns, and the drifting clenchings of her tiny infant hands, he doesn't notice Hershel's approach until he takes a place beside him in the otherwise empty cell block. Daryl looks up at the older man, who appears to have been studying Daryl just as Daryl'd been keenly watching Ass Kicker. Hershel's grayed brow knits lightly, "How is it going?"

Daryl glances at him, then nods. "Mm,hm."

The folds underlying Hershel's eyes wrinkle beneath his overhanging bushy white brows, and his lips pull fixed and straight as he looks at the archer, thinking the words before he speaks them. "She worried, when you were gone." It's not the baby he means.

Daryl nods solemnly. "I know."

"Course," Hershel says, shifting his weight with the unassuming stature of a community elder, "we all did; 'bout all of you."

Again Daryl nods, but his eyes avert contact, fixing instead on the ground, on his hands, on his feet, on the baby. He rubs at the nape of his neck and clears his throat, "Didn't mean tuh—"

"No," Hershel stops him, softly shaking his head. "That's just—" he worries his mouth, "what we've got now."

Daryl nods, but he can't shake feeling badly for drawing her in further than he had a right to. No one makes it on their own; a person needs people, needs family, but there's an indisputable cost to getting too close to anyone. And maybe Hershel thinks he's let this thing with Beth go too far. Girl's already lost a boyfriend. And a mother, and a brother; hell, damn near lost her dad. Maybe she'd be better off if he wasn't one more thing for her to count on and then hav'ta risk losing. Daryl's face twitches in conflict; he'd reconciled it all, back in Beth's room, when it was just him and her, and she was saying those things, and looking the way she does, but maybe he's asking too much, wanting to be with her. He'd never had this,  _love_ , in any real way in his life before, what makes him think he can have it now, when it's the world that's gone to shit, and not just what he's done to his own waste of a life. Hershel hadn't pictured him, when he'd thought about Beth's life, th _a_ t he knows. Daryl turns away shaking his head, he's all mixed up. "Naw," his shaggy hair drops and shields his wounded face, "my'be be better if—" Daryl swallows and stops himself; he isn't going say he doesn't want her. He'd fight to be with Beth if he could be sure that it'd be right. Daryl Dixon winces and then begins again, "Kept worryin' she'd go out there – try 'n look fer me. Fer us."

Hershel looks at him, gravely, "That didn't happen."

"No…"

"But it could have," he says. "If you all had been out much longer. I believe she would have done. Tried at least." Somehow that unbelievably hurts Daryl. He can't say why. There's no good in being weak, or timid, or squeamish, and no one's worth much if they're not part of the group, doing what they can to keep the group together and to bring everyone home, but it's painful to him to be the reason Beth would hurl herself into danger, to be the reason she'd venture past the gates looking to kill. He'd managed his whole life not to mean much to anybody — he'd mattered to Merle, but that never manifested as anything much; as a kid he hadn't wanted to be so disconnected, so unreachable, ultimately so unable to be touched, but it came to be the only insulation he got. Having ties has always had costs, like watching your ma die in flames, or your brother walk away and leave you behind, or your old man beating ya as soon as look at ya, but in this world the costs are even higher. Maybe only now in this new life does he see what it's worth, but what if it isn't him who would pay? The cost would be exacted against Beth. Gentle little hopeful Beth, and taking that from her is more than he'd bargained for when he'd lifted that stone pick from beneath his folded laundry. And what if it  _is_  him? Who's left alone? Daryl pushes the unbearable thought back; he would be shattered.

He doesn't want to be alone, an outsider to the group, he's not the same as he was when he camped out on that knoll on the outskirts of the farm encampment on his own. He's not a lone wolf, doesn't want to be anyway, but he hadn't planned to tie his fate so closely with another's. Things need getting done, he does them, that's been his role; he hadn't been looking for anything more. He was managing, it was enough. But now he has her. And love, he's discovered, is responsibility. If he goes down, he can't drag her with him; Beth has got to remain upright. Things have got to last for her beyond him.

"Daryl," Hershel interjects, "you can't take so much on." Hershel blinks softly. "We do all we can do, and it has to be enough." Daryl grunts; he knows this to be true, it just isn't much of a comfort. A moment passes by them. "She's young," Hershel says, head bowed, glancing at the child, "my Bethy."

Daryl, his head similarly ducked, sneaks a glance at the old farmer, "Yeh," he grunts with a slight nod.

"I don't mean just in years."

"Yeah," Daryl echos.

"Always was," Hershel reflects, shifting a little the weight on his good leg and leaning some against the prison wall. Daryl flinches, waits to hear Hershel out. "She sees things, things others fail to see anymore; maybe they never could. Good things  _—_  the beauty in l _i_ fe." Daryl nods in response. "But," and Hershel waits for Daryl to lift his head to see him, "she also, doesn't see the world for what it  _is_. Its true ugliness, the hate." His soft fatherly eyes crinkle at their corners as he thinks about his youngest child;she hadn't known a childhood like his, but the violence caught up with them in the end, in a staggeringly unforeseeable form. "We have to protect her from that. As we can." Hershel gives a little shake of his head, "She's never b _ee_ n Maggie."

"Dudn't need to be." Daryl's voice is gruff as he breaks his silence. He shifts his stance, and hazards a glance towards Hershel's direction. "She's got her own strength."

Quietly Hershel looks over at Daryl, who's still keeping his gaze askance, and a slight smile twinkles in his old graying eyes beneath thoes prominent eyebrows. "That's very true," Hershel reflects, as he lays his hand to rest on Daryl's shoulder  _—_  though Daryl's instinct in the moment is to shrug it off he does not do so, and instead entertains what it might have been to have a father whose touch was not to be feared  _—_  "It," Hershel pauses, "wouldn't be r _i_ ght, to hope for her to change."

Daryl looks up; something behind his eyes looks somehow wounded when he answers Hershel, but his words and comportment are strong and intrepid, as only he can be. "Wouldn't want 'er to. But, you're wr _o_ ng," he says. "'Bout her." Hershel looks at him _—_  "She's n _o_ t bl _i_ nd. She g _i_ ts it. She j'st..." and Daryl thinks on how to put it... "doesn't think that's  _a_ ll there is. She dudn't n _ee_ d shelterin'. Not like th _a_ t." Daryl scratches his beard, "She's not afr _ai_ d." His upper lip lifts at one corner in an appreciative smirk, "Wouldn't think it tuh look at 'er neither."

Hershel listens, and watches this man, his friend, tell him things about his daughter. "You're a good man, Daryl." He blinks. "The best. You're a man of conscience _—_ " Daryl's jaw tightens, it's hard to stand there and hear this " _—_ you do the right thing, you're there for people. They depend on you.  _I_  depend on you. My family does  _—_  my girls." Hershel looks at him, "I can't ask you to keep her safe  _—_ " Daryl looks at Hershel " _—_  I know you already do. All of us. You've kept us safe a hundred times over; kept us going." Daryl's urge to drop his head in the face of praise is strong, but he keeps his head up, with eyes unfocused, intensely listening. "It's not fair _—_ " Hershel starts, and at this Daryl tenses in anticipation, but Hershel never says whatever Daryl thought he might " _—_ to assign you to her safe keeping." Daryl blinks, his expression twitches. "It's too much."

Daryl shakes his head soberly, "It a _i_ n't."

"Daryl," Hershel shakes his head with compassion, "we're all beholden to each other, we all must work for one another. We all must protect one another, but, to hold another's life in your hands, it's a burden you can't take on. The weight of it might kill you."

Daryl's gruff, soberly impetuous voice speaks with conviction as he rebukes this notion. "N _o_ t doin' anythin'," Daryl mutters, "th _a_ t's whut kills ya."

Hershel looks at him again, studying the man, the shape of a smile twinging at the corners of his mouth and eyes as he does. Again he pats Daryl's shoulder. "You may be right about that."

" _I'am_ ," he nods. And the two men stand there beside one another in understanding.

Hershel straightens and evens his weight more between his leg and his prosthetic, but he does not move away; he pauses, and he looks back at Daryl, "She's my baby girl," he reflects, and this time Daryl looks right at him. "And I love her."

Daryl nods, "I'h know."

"And, I think, I think you could make her happy." His old face warms as he states, "She loves you." Hershel pauses to wet his lips. "I believe you are equal to it." He does not linger; it would only compound Daryl's diffidence to do so.

With Hershel behind him, Daryl's eyes shut. But the old farmer's voice comes once more: "She deserves it. She deserves some chances at happiness." He moves further off, through the gate to the common room, but pauses once more before truly leaving Daryl's company. "All the rest of it—" he starts, "it doesn't matter. Be good to her, Son." Hershel Greene nods once slowly to himself, "I know that you will."


	31. Chapter 31

Daryl unclips the clamps on the outer fence, pushes back the chain link, and ducks through to the other side. He refastens the fence, shoulders his bow, and walks, feeling the bend of the drying grass and leaves underfoot. He strides ahead, crossing the little creek bridge, and heads into the woods. It's quiet there. In the foliage he leaves behind him the snarlings and growlings of the fence clingers. The sun fades above him under the shifting rippling cover of the Georgian woods. Daryl breathes. It feels good to stretch his limbs, to have the open sky above him and to feel the weight of his own body on his legs.

Daryl walks, tromping over branch and brush, spying out trails he can track, game he can hunt. His eyes fixed ahead Daryl's hand moves to his side and unfastens the clip on his Busse knife in its sheath, keeping it at the ready. He lifts his loaded bow and treads lightly, through the woods, through the shadows and over the dips and inclines, tracking his prey, stalking their dinner, following after his long known freedom in the woods.

Not by half are Daryl Dixon's life memories in the woods ones he'd choose to hold on to any longer — being scared and bullied by his old man, being lost as a boy, following Merle on bad deals they'd had no business running, losing family and hounded by violence and gore, but still, these woods are his. He's been nowhere else but here. His hands, his feet, his body, his senses, they're smart here; here he can move with stealth and the upper hand. Here, if anyone is, he's at the advantage. He can breathe here, isn't so crowded, and he's always found what he's needed. Mostly. The backwoods tell a man who he is, the backwoods tells him what he needs, and what he can do without, what he can leave behind and walk away from.

He's gone for hours. In the interval the wind changes, the light shifts, the shadows lengthen, and heading back, six squirrels strung back over one shoulder, he feels  _himself_  again. He hasn't come to the woods this day to walk away from anything.

Daryl returns to the prison, letting himself back in through the wire-cut fence, taking down two walkers before reaching it. Everything is as he left it. Rick's in the fields with Hershel and Carl, trails of smoke from the kitchen oven and barbecue is already starting to rise in preparation for dinner, laundry flutters in the breeze, and the cull crew's working the fences with dispassion.

He heads back, taking long lanky strides through the fields, nodding at Rick as he passes, and takes a sidetrack to pass through the guard run nearest the yard. The walker buildup isn't too bad, but it's best it's being managed; five figures stand at the chain-link divider between home and hell, working with sustained exertion to bring down with calculated efficiency as many rotters as they can before they lose the light in another hour or more. Working among them, just as winded and just as filth-splattered, is Beth. He does not pause to talk with her, she's in a rhythm, and he has no words to say, and the squirrels he's carrying should be tended to, but with a passing flick of his wrist he gives a quick flip to her ponytail and continues on. Her head turns from her kill to follow his progress up the gravel path. It's a sort of wise smile she beams at his retreating figure, but she does not leave her post and presently returns to her next kill, leaving him to return to the prison yard and to go about whatever business he may have.

Daryl drops his game at the kitchens and moves on. He'd clean the meat himself but it'd be a disruption of the division of labor he'd had little to nothing to do with the setting up of, and while skinning a few more squirrels is nothing on top of the hundreds he's killed and cleaned through the years of his life, he recognizes no one wants to feel ill at use, and if others can't shoot a squirrel as it scurries up the trunk of a tree, they can clean them and cook them — after he'd taken the pains to teach the how; so he leaves them. He moves through the yard to the galley between C and E block and checks on his bike. He knows before it's in sight it'll be just as he'd left it — they'd only been away a week — but checking it is one more thing to tell him he's home, and he's in need of something to do with his hands.

He works, undisturbed, tightening and greasing, polishing and refueling, feeling the sun leave him behind as it passes behind the the brick cell blocks, lowering gradually into an autumn dusk. When he's done all there is to be done that didn't need doing from the start, he rises and wiping the grease from his hands with a rag from his back pocket he enters the prison.

Daryl finds Carol going through the prison's kitchen's pantry taking stock with a clipboard and a pen, taking inventory of what they have and at what rate their supply is diminishing, calculating if and at what point rations will again have to be adjusted. Daryl doesn't enter, but leans himself against the wall there, casually observing her as she does figures in her head.

Carol glances at him as he walks in, "You go out?"

"Yeup."

"On your own?"

"Mm,hm."

She looks him over, her deep feeling eyes watching him in earnest, "You all right? You didn't look so good last night."

Daryl nods a couple times, "I'm al'right." He wanders around, taking visual stock, scratching at the beard on his chin, "Been thinkin'," he kicks lightly at what little remains of a 55 lb. bag of rice, "we prob'y should'a stopped some places on our way back." Daryl tugs at his beard, "Not make the whole thing a wipe."

"You didn't look like you were in any condition; none of you did." Daryl shrugs. This is probably true, and it's true all any of them could think of was getting back, but now they are, and looking at their pantry, it seems foolish. "Better to have you back." She glances at him, not sure he isn't still thinking through 'what ifs' and 'should have beens'. "I mean it Daryl." And he lifts his head from his reveries and squints at her in response. "Nobody's starving; nobody's dying. We're all right here. We'll plan another run."

In answer Daryl's broad shoulders twist in an equally resigned and wistful gesture. "Was always a long shot."

"Yes, it was."

"Guess, better to try."

Carol nods, watching him, "Mm, hm."

Daryl moves further into the room, sits himself on top of a stainless steel push cart, and gestures for her to toss him a bag of sunflower seeds. They'd found a stash of the pocket packets early on in one of the guard towers, and they've proved to be much-prized by many of the male inhabitants of the prison, particularly those who'd been smokers. Carol looks at him, at the ever-shrinking supply of food from the old world, then tosses him the bag. He flashes a grin at her then tears into the plastic seal with his teeth. He holds the bag out in offer to her, but Carol shakes her head and returns to counting and Daryl holds the bag above his mouth and dumps several salted shells in at once. With his tongue and back teeth he breaks the shells in half and eats the seeds, spitting the shells into the greasy rag on his leg. "Any changes? While we was gone?"

Carol shakes her head. "Nothing critical. Council's meeting tonight; thought with both you and Sasha gone, it'd be best to. — Bring everyone up to speed."

Daryl nods. He chews, and spits more seeds, "Anythin' else?"

Carol thinks, and comes up with, "Judith can clap."

Daryl's brows, arch with wonder, he hadn't exactly meant that kind of news, but he's never been around a baby for any kind of milestones and he does take pleasure in the marking of the progress in this little one's life. His lip turns up at one end a little, in a pleased sort of smirk, "Pretty good."

* * *

Dinner is cooked and served, and delivered to those standing watch. The council meets in the library, and the rest of the prison settles into the night. Some read, some play cards or checkers or chess. Some talk, some mend clothes or maintain weapons, some retire quietly to pray or not pray, others find quiet dark corners expressly not to be alone. The prison is as full of life as the world outside seems no longer to be, and in it every survivor lives their little life as freely and as bravely as they can, pursuing what interests passions and pursuits they may, preserving themselves, or discovering and reforging themselves as they need. It is a private, complicated matter, this business of staying alive beyond the body, beyond the breaths that come in and out and the food that must be eaten and the violence and the shielding and the running done to survive. There is more to life than that, and it looks different for each — every loss is different, each exacting its own cost, and the coming back never looks the same, but together the prison survivors struggle for the space to come back, and the rise again in the rendering they and the times they find themselves in create for themselves.

The meeting over, Daryl steps into Beth's open-curtained cell to find her already asleep, curled up in her bunk. She's still dressed, Convict the kitten is nestled into her arms, and she sleeps so soundly, like the two of them have been there for some time. He thinks about not disturbing her. He thinks about climbing the stairs to his own room, spending the night in his own bunk for once — give her some space. No one said they were attached at the hips. No one said there were rules for how this thing between them is meant to play out, only he does not want space. Every night and day he was gone he thought about this, about being right there with her, close enough to touch, close enough to dream her dreams. In this moment he desires little more than to be in that narrow metal bed with that young woman and that purring infant cat.  _She loves him, why would he ever walk away?_

Daryl moves in as quietly as he might, and with a little tug pulls free her curtain from the sash that keeps it open in the day. Looking out for the cat he sits on the edge of bed, and unlaces his boots, one by one, and tugs them off, leaving them in place right beside the bed should he need them in a sudden. He shrugs off his vest and unbuttons the laundered and freshly mended shirt Beth had had waiting for him when he'd emerged from the showers late last night. The kitten stirs, and mews so softly, then repositions itself and settles back against Beth and her warm chest that expands slightly with each slow and steady slumbering breath. Daryl glances at her, then rises to her sink; he takes a wash cloth and dips it into her water basin and scrubs his hands, his face, his under arms. The only thing in the room that's his he didn't walk in with is his toothbrush, and he grabs it now, squeezes on just a bit of what's left in Beth's diminishing tube, and goes to work on his teeth, with particular attention to his back molars and the roof of his mouth. Beth stirs, and toothbrush in mouth he turns to look at her.

Rubbing her face to better awaken herself Beth looks at him, "I hadn't meant to fall asleep."

Daryl answers though he continues brushing his teeth, "Hadn't meant tuh wake ya." He spits.

"No, really," she pushes herself up, "I'm s'posed to be awake. It's just," her eyes close in an extended blink as she rallies to rouse herself, "I didn't get a lot of sleep—" She says this, and then she looks away, like she couldn't have said a worse thing. "Sorry, I did not mean to make it about me."

"Ain't no 'it'," he says freely, then spits again. "You're tired — sleep."

Beth crawls over the cat and stands herself up, "I was waiting for you."

He looks down at her, that much shorter than he without the help of her boots, "Here I 'm." He drops his brush in the glass at her sink and switches places with her, scooping the animal up and sitting on the warm bed. Daryl holds Convict tenderly, rubbing her small brow with his large thumb and scratching its tiny neck with his strong calloused fingers. The tiny animal vibrates in his hand with near inaudible purrs, nuzzling itself to him. Beth changes to her night clothes, she washes herself and kills the light.

In the camp while others sleep, Michonne joins Rick on the catwalk where he stands looking up at the stars. Carl lies in his top bunk with his little sister, reading Remarque by headlamp. Hershel sits in the library with Tyreese and a few others, chatting quietly over mugs of heated brown liquid so watered down it only  _smells_  like coffee. Maggie and Glenn are in the watch tower for the night, and Carol turns in her bed, and falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're not done yet, but we're getting there. I'm going to miss this story, and all of you, thanks for your continued readership & support!


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell, I may be jumping the gun on posting this, it may need one more round of clear-headed revisions, but i'm feeling trigger happy. Sorry if it reads rough. Thank you to all you lovely readers and especially the reviewers. (Not the final chapter, but may be for a little bit.) Rated M

In bed in the still darkness he is in her arms, or she is in his, and they lie together, tucked into the warmth of her bed. Their breaths mingle as they nestle in, and he presses his lips to her shoulder in a slow motionless kiss; twice she kisses his arm. Their fingers entwine and hold tightly to one another, but their lips have yet to meet. Quiet, and safely on their own, there is a rejoining of their spirits, a further forging of a bond so gently emblazoned from the start. It comes so naturally to them, to be there, present, and whole. His capable body feels rugged and steadfast beside her and effortlessly her warm body melts into his.

Curled into him, Beth speaks quietly and intently into his broad tanned neck, "I love you. Daryl." She kisses his shoulder as she feels his bearded face nuzzling the top of her head. "You don't have to say it; it's—"

Daryl twists his neck and tucks his head down so that he can see her clearly, "Naw," he gruffs, "screw that." He shifts a little so he's on his arm looking at her, really studying her; lightly he brushes the hair out of her eyes, "I love ya, Beth." Daryl kisses her forehead and speaks softly into her brow. "Love the hell outta you."

Beth blinks, her soft eyes look up to take him in; she loves the creases about his eyes, and the scruff at his jaw, and the hardened boyishness about him. She can't remember back to when he used to frighten her. He was brash, and he was gruff, and they all came in carrying guns, and there was something dark, and shadowy about him, but she can't see any of that now. Even behind his shadows he's still  _Daryl_ , and there's nothing to fear in that. She feels safer with him than with anyone, maybe more herself; she believes he feels the same.

Her head rises from her pillow and she watches him blink as he takes her in. Beth's smile is warm and as her focus narrows in on his lips the distance between them becomes untenable, and their lips meet – soft, and wet. Their hands touch, and their lips, and their bodies pull together with a kindred magnetism.

Their hands find each other again and Beth pulls their locked fingers to her lips and presses her mouth to his knuckles, feeling his steady watchful eyes on her as she does. "Daryl—" she breathes, no more audible than a whisper.

His warm lips cover the surface of her exposed neck, trailing along her jaw line, her earlobe, and underneath to her neckline and the impossibly soft skin of her throat and collarbone. There is a stirring in both of them, a quiet dull awakening of wanting — to be touched, to be loved, to be held, and to let go together. To  _be_. To be the other's only one, to breathe in unison, to move in unison; to be together, not only in love, and in comfort, but in life, and in passion.  _This_  is it – survival is for moments such as this: sheer vibrant uncowed life — a connection with another person beyond protection and fellowship, beyond everything but the very deepest knowing.

Daryl kisses her deeply, like he hasn't had enough occasions to do, and then his firm hands turn her round on her other side so that the bends in their bodies fall in parallel. His heavy palm runs the course of her clothed body, and Beth is aglow, every bit of her alive, feeling his strong sturdy body behind her, his solid arms holding her fast. Beth's slender hands cling his muscled arms to her, and quietly their bodies magnetize together in a slow rolling of the hips that offers little satisfaction in comparison to the desire it builds. With little relief her narrow hips arc and nudge backwards, further in to him for some reprieve where he catches her, delighting in the dull agony of unanswered wanting.

It seems like minutes string together and pass them by between the moments either one of them thinks to take a breath. So heightened and electric is the mounting anticipation, so completely drawn are they both to the yet unexplored satisfaction they're finding harder and harder to defer or prolong, they forget to breathe. The tension builds in their chests and in their lungs, and then he's breathing heavily in her ear, breathing her name and every dream he's had about her and her lithe lovely body.  _So soft, so beautiful and slender and pale and young;_  nothing he would have looked for himself excepting they all belong to her.  _Beth_.  _His_  Beth.  _How could he not want her? How could he not dream of her?_ He'd already closed this door in his life along with so many others; it was necessary. Shut down, closed in, it's how he's always been, not just since the change. Daryl's never sought out love. He never sought out family, or camaraderie or leadership neither, not in his old life and not in this new, but they had come to him, and in the darkness and in the loss and in the ugly chaos he has found her, someone to open up to, someone to trust and to come alive for; Beth has been that person. She has been the one to help him find he needs that sort of person. Not by any one thing she did, or anything she did on purpose, but he sees in her another way to be strong. Strength surrounds him in this new family. Rick. Michonne. Carol. Glenn, Hershel, Maggie, Carl; Sasha. There are as many ways of being strong as there are of being alive, but Beth's strength isn't guarded, it isn't careful – she does not shield herself, she's wide open. To trust at all these days may be a liability, but it takes undeniable strength to choose to see good when mostly what a person meets is bad, or worse. Strength to Daryl had meant being closed off, always out of step, out of reach, on his own, but it's not the only way. It's new to him.

And this is new to her. Arching her neck back Beth holds onto his head and finds Daryl's lips, closing them on hers in warm rising desire. Their bodies move together as their tongues and lips also do. All concerns between them that have stopped them in the past are fading – thoughts of firsts and experience, and risk assessment. They are alive. They are together. They should live their lives as though these things are true for as long as they can.

Their hearts beat in unison as his callus-hardened hand slips from her interlocked fingers and travels so slowly down her torso and in past her waistband, down, down to her, where she waits for him, just as for all those nights and days she had been waiting for him. Her body is soft, and warm and deliciously ready; to touch her feels like it would to touch a dream. But this is no dream; it is grounded and real. Her breath catches as he slips within her and that momentary gasp of breathless response arouses in him a great stirring, a building, and mounting. Life is short now, he means to explore her pleasure slowly, with as much time as they have, but the build up is teasing and excruciating. Beth flexes into him, holding fixedly his sturdy arm against her while from beneath her his free hand finds and molds her soft breasts, no larger than his palm, but warm, and incredibly, heavenly soft, where, beneath their gentle rising and falling, beats her heart, usually so steady and constant, now racing and unchecked. Her gentle heart. His fingers circle, playing and lovingly provoking her, teasing her in a way she's unaccustomed to. Beth's hand leaves his arm and she reaches back to his leg, to his thigh, behind him to his lower back, pulling him to her, his body so strong and solid behind her. She never feels so loved, not so like a woman, or even as strong, as she does when she's with him, seeing herself through his eyes, through his hands, wanting to be everything his soul and body needs and wants her to be. "Daryl—" she breathes, and his finger sinks deeper, and his hips press in closer, and with a great breath his warm mouth is back on her jaw, fighting and twisting to get to her mouth and when he reaches he devours her mouth her lips and her tongue, consuming her in the way he's been trying to stave off for weeks.

Beth turns to him, she can't not see him any longer, she twists and reaches him, breathless and afire, and on her face is not the expression of a young girl making playful rogue discoveries with some boyfriend, she is a woman; young, but truly her own, not taking charge but giving herself freely, opening herself to her partner, her mate, as finally he does as well. He couldn't not; he's been staying alive, keeping the others around him alive, keeping his eyes ever watchful, of what's next to come, this isn't a world left for recreation, for pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence, he's left that all behind, but in this tiny bed with her, in this cinderblock cell, closed in and encapsulated from all that lies in wait beyond, this is not that, but something vital, and necessary; and nature and history pump through them with delicious urgency, coursing through them at a rhythm that is not to be stopped. This, with her, this being with Beth, is not a distraction, not a deviance from their survival it  _is_  it, tied up in their humanity and their spirits and whatever force it is within them that pushes them to live, to fight, and to thrive.

Off comes her shirt then his right behind. Bare skin blazes on bare skin and she pushes his hand down tugging at her waistband, asking him without the words to remove her clothes, to see her and to hold her. Daryl's deep blues eyes pause as briefly he studies her, then his mouth consumes hers and his hands move deftly to free her gamine limbs. Short on breath he stops, and captivated by her lingers above her; the sight of her, without her layers, without her little Beth-styles and fashions – just her, just Beth, smiling softly and in wait, is too much. Touching her is one thing but there she is, all of her to be touched, to be cherished. He will carry the beauty of this scene and the breathlessness of it with him, weightless, and beautiful and precious, among all the other things Daryl Dixon carries with him in these harrowing times.

He would hesitate to remove what worn and tattered clothing still remains on him, but there'd be no point it in. There's no room for caution here, no need as they've surpassed it; nothing is at stake, nothing is at risk. He feels no jeopardy with her. With her, in this his scars do not exist, his past has been disarmed, his inveterate guard is let down, and he is not shy when at last he lets her see him. He isn't shy, he isn't damaged; he is a man, attending to the woman he loves.

As he holds her and caresses her she touches him and he thinks he might combust. The aching, the wanting, it no loner comes in waves but in huge heavy torrents:  _Desire_ _._  Hungrily he takes her in his mouth, running his tongue around the expanse of her breast, feeling it's slight heft, twirling round and round her tiny nipple. As he does Daryl feels Beth's body wordlessly give and bend into this sensation and his desire for her intensifies.

"Beth?" he asks her. He'll stop. With whatever strength he has within him he'll stop any point she asks.

Beth's flushed face shakes, " _I love you_ ," her tongue whispers into his mouth as she kisses him. She will not ask him to stop.

Their legs wrap into each other as they lie on their sides and find one another. Mouths meeting. Bodies meeting. The pleasure of their ultimate union grants them immediate relief, instantaneous satisfaction of this singular contact. There is some struggle, some discomfort there to work through — Beth gasps and he stops, and holds her face, "Y'a'lright?" Beth breathes and smiles, and clutches to him, guiding her lover to press forward. Breathing heavily Daryl draws her closer, and as their bodies further entwine, the center of their universe, of their gravity, shrinks ever smaller, ever more focused to that one exploding point in the universe. Their heads go light, their bodies go light, everything outside of their immediate physicality disappears entirely. In these moments together everything they are, everything they live for is right there in that bed with them, circling around them in a deep euphoric frenzy of friction and connection and passion, and love.

He pulls her on top of him, cupping her sweet breasts, holding her sweeter face, looking her deep in the eyes, inviting her to test her own pleasure. Beth holds his strong hands; she looks in his eyes. Daryl raises himself up to her, wrapping his arms about her, holding her up, holding her close, rocking her slim girlish hips in time.

But it is not enough, and with ease he lifts her, turns, and cradles her beneath him, holding her up, raising his love's body to him in the strength of one firm forearm gripped round the small of her back, letting her arc and curl and bend as her body pleases. Beth wraps him with herself as best she can. The man, this brash, blustering man who is so brave, so strong for all of them; a leader, and a brother, but tender, and sad, and somewhat broken. She loves him. She loves him so dearly, and that soft gruff voice of his, and those sad piercing eyes that see everything. Her fingers never falter when they touch the unnatural welts on his back; his skin is part of him, his story is part of him, and she wants him all, loves him all. There is no room in that small room of theirs for pity. She's lost home in so many ways, but Daryl is something to hold on to – his hand, his courage, his dauntless determination to survive, and that heart; that heart that seeks out balance, that survives loss, and aims to help. He is generous, and he feels deeply, though she hadn't seen that in him at first.

Soon, on top of the pain, her body is dizzy with an overflow of arousal and emotion, and Daryl too edges close to full and utter surrender. He drives himself in once more with steady purposeful focus, holds himself to her, waiting for a shudder or a quenching within her, " _Beth_ —" he pants, then escapes quickly before his intense release erupts inside her.

Messily he catches it in his hand, wipes himself with the tail of his shirt and reaches once more for her, pulling Beth to him in their little bed, in their little world, her slight body, warm, and wet, and spent, and his. The bedding they lie in is heated from their passion and dampened from their exertion and he pulls the covers around them, cocooning them further into this brave new world of their own creation. Three times he kisses her temple, sticky with sweat and her mussed golden hair, and heavily he breathes into her his contentment, and they pay no mind to the sounds that must have echoed beyond their four small walls, or on whose ears they fell. The world for now is still just they two, tangled together, delivered, and assuaged. Beth kisses him. First on his shut eyes, then at the hinge of his jaw where the scruff of his beard just starts to grow, and three times on his lips, where his loving mouth opens to hers and they fall into one another again in satiated union.

His hand finds hers, and absently he studies their fingers as they fold and refold within one another. Beth lies quietly in his arms, listening fondly to his heartbeat beneath her ear. Her smile is serene and wistful and proud as she turns fractionally to kiss his scarred and tattooed chest. Daryl's voice comes out raspy, but earnest. "Never loved nothing like you."

" _Daryl_ ," she whispers, and with her finger silently traces a small heart on his winded chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update: This story has not been abandoned, I promise, I would never do that. It is, however, nearly finished anyway and only has something like four chapters left (I think...). I have so enjoyed writing this story and the interactions I've had with the readers, thank you! I have the last four chapters plotted out, but what I have so far is reading flat and underwhelming, so I'm taking some time to think them over. With work and school it may take a while to post again, but hopefully I left off in a satisfactory enough place. ;) While I ruminate on "Hold On" I've been working off and on on my other TWD chapter story "Faith"; check it out in the meantime! xx


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